Persuasion

by Jane Austen

Chapter 1



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Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who,

for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage;

there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a

distressed one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and

respect, by contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents;

there any unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs

changed naturally into pity and contempt as he turned over

the almost endless creations of the last century; and there,

if every other leaf were powerless, he could read his own history

with an interest which never failed.  This was the page at which

the favorite volume always opened:
  
  

       "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.

"Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,

daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of

Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth,

born June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son,

November 5, 1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791."
  
  

Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer's hands;

but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of

himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary's birth--

"Married, December 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles

Musgrove, Esq. of Uppercross, in the county of Somerset,"

and by inserting most accurately the day of the month on which

he had lost his wife.
  
  

Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable family,

in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire;

how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff,

representing a borough in three successive parliaments,

exertions of loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year

of Charles II, with all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married;

forming altogether two handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with

the arms and motto:--"rincipal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county

of Somerset," and Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale:--
  
  

"Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of

the second Sir Walter."
  
  

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character;

vanity of person and of situation.  He had been remarkably handsome

in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man.

Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did,

nor could the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with

the place he held in society.  He considered the blessing of beauty

as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot,

who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect

and devotion.
  
  

His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment;

since to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character

to any thing deserved by his own.  Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman,

sensible and amiable; whose judgement and conduct, if they might be

pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot,

had never required indulgence afterwards.--She had humoured,

or softened, or concealed his failings, and promoted his real

respectability for seventeen years; and though not the very happiest

being in the world herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends,

and her children, to attach her to life, and make it no matter of

indifference to her when she was called on to quit them.

--Three girls, the two eldest sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy

for a mother to bequeath, an awful charge rather, to confide to

the authority and guidance of a conceited, silly father.

She had, however, one very intimate friend, a sensible, deserving woman,

who had been brought, by strong attachment to herself, to settle

close by her, in the village of Kellynch; and on her kindness and advice,

Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help and maintenance of

the good principles and instruction which she had been anxiously

giving her daughters.
  
  

This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been

anticipated on that head by their acquaintance.  Thirteen years

had passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still

near neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower,

the other a widow.
  
  

That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely

well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage,

needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably

discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not;

but Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation.

Be it known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with

one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications),

prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sake.

For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing,

which he had not been very much tempted to do.  Elizabeth had succeeded,

at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights

and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself,

her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together

most happily.  His two other children were of very inferior value.

Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming

Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness

of character, which must have placed her high with any people

of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister;

her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way--

she was only Anne.
  
  

To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued

god-daughter, favourite, and friend.  Lady Russell loved them all;

but it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.
  
  

A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl,

but her bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height,

her father had found little to admire in her, (so totally different

were her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his own),

there could be nothing in them, now that she was faded and thin,

to excite his esteem. He had never indulged much hope, he had now none,

of ever reading her name in any other page of his favourite work.

All equality of alliance must rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely

connected herself with an old country family of respectability and

large fortune, and had therefore given all the honour and received none:

Elizabeth would, one day or other, marry suitably.
  
  

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than

she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been

neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any

charm is lost.  It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome

Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter

might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least,

be deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth

as blooming as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else;

for he could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and

acquaintance were growing.  Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face

in the neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot

about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him.
  
  

Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.

Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and

directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given

the idea of her being younger than she was.  For thirteen years had

she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at home,

and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking immediately after

Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms in the country.

Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball

of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded, and thirteen springs

shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to London with her father,

for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the great world.  She had

the remembrance of all this, she had the consciousness of being

nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions;

she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever,

but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced

to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within

the next twelvemonth or two.  Then might she again take up

the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,

but now she liked it not.  Always to be presented with the date of

her own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister,

made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it

open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes,

and pushed it away.
  
  

She had had a disappointment, moreover, which that book,

and especially the history of her own family, must ever present

the remembrance of.  The heir presumptive, the very William Walter

Elliot, Esq., whose rights had been so generously supported

by her father, had disappointed her.
  
  

She had, while a very young girl, as soon as she had known him to be,

in the event of her having no brother, the future baronet,

meant to marry him, and her father had always meant that she should.

He had not been known to them as a boy; but soon after Lady Elliot's death,

Sir Walter had sought the acquaintance, and though his overtures

had not been met with any warmth, he had persevered in seeking it,

making allowance for the modest drawing-back of youth; and, in one of

their spring excursions to London, when Elizabeth was in her first bloom,

Mr Elliot had been forced into the introduction.
  
  

He was at that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of the law;

and Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable, and every plan in his favour

was confirmed.  He was invited to Kellynch Hall; he was talked of

and expected all the rest of the year; but he never came.
The following spring he was seen again in town, found equally agreeable,

again encouraged, invited, and expected, and again he did not come;

and the next tidings were that he was married.  Instead of pushing

his fortune in the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot,

he had purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman

of inferior birth.
  
  

Sir Walter has resented it.  As the head of the house, he felt that

he ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man

so publicly by the hand; "For they must have been seen together,"

he observed, "once at Tattersal's, and twice in the lobby of

the House of Commons."  His disapprobation was expressed,

but apparently very little regarded.  Mr Elliot had attempted no apology,

and shewn himself as unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family,

as Sir Walter considered him unworthy of it:  all acquaintance between

them had ceased.
  
  

This very awkward history of Mr Elliot was still, after an interval

of several years, felt with anger by Elizabeth, who had liked the man

for himself, and still more for being her father's heir, and whose

strong family pride could see only in him a proper match for Sir Walter

Elliot's eldest daughter.  There was not a baronet from A to Z whom

her feelings could have so willingly acknowledged as an equal.

Yet so miserably had he conducted himself, that though she was

at this present time (the summer of 1814) wearing black ribbons

for his wife, she could not admit him to be worth thinking of again.

The disgrace of his first marriage might, perhaps, as there was

no reason to suppose it perpetuated by offspring, have been got over,

had he not done worse; but he had, as by the accustomary intervention

of kind friends, they had been informed, spoken most disrespectfully

of them all, most slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood

he belonged to, and the honours which were hereafter to be his own.

This could not be pardoned.
  
  

Such were Elizabeth Elliot's sentiments and sensations; such the cares

to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance,

the prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life;

such the feelings to give interest to a long, uneventful residence

in one country circle, to fill the vacancies which there were no habits

of utility abroad, no talents or accomplishments for home, to occupy.
  
  

But now, another occupation and solicitude of mind was beginning to be

added to these.  Her father was growing distressed for money.

She knew, that when he now took up the Baronetage, it was to drive

the heavy bills of his tradespeople, and the unwelcome hints of

Mr Shepherd, his agent, from his thoughts.  The Kellynch property was good,

but not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required

in its possessor.  While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method,

moderation, and economy, which had just kept him within his income;

but with her had died all such right-mindedness, and from that period

he had been constantly exceeding it.  It had not been possible

for him to spend less; he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot

was imperiously called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was

not only growing dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often,

that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer, even partially,

from his daughter.  He had given her some hints of it the last spring

in town; he had gone so far even as to say, "Can we retrench?

Does it occur to you that there is any one article in which

we can retrench?" and Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first

ardour of female alarm, set seriously to think what could be done,

and had finally proposed these two branches of economy, to cut off

some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from new furnishing

the drawing-room; to which expedients she afterwards added

the happy thought of their taking no present down to Anne,

as had been the usual yearly custom.  But these measures,

however good in themselves, were insufficient for the real extent

of the evil, the whole of which Sir Walter found himself obliged

to confess to her soon afterwards.  Elizabeth had nothing to propose

of deeper efficacy.  She felt herself ill-used and unfortunate,

as did her father; and they were neither of them able to devise

any means of lessening their expenses without compromising their dignity,

or relinquishing their comforts in a way not to be borne.
  
  

There was only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose of;

but had every acre been alienable, it would have made no difference.
He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the power,

but he would never condescend to sell.  No; he would never disgrace

his name so far.  The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole

and entire, as he had received it.
  
  

Their two confidential friends, Mr Shepherd, who lived in

the neighbouring market town, and Lady Russell, were called to advise them;

and both father and daughter seemed to expect that something should be

struck out by one or the other to remove their embarrassments

and reduce their expenditure, without involving the loss of

any indulgence of taste or pride.


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Thank you very much.

Chapter 20
Sir Walter, his two daughters, and Mrs Clay, were the earliest of all their party at the rooms in the evening; and as Lady Dalrymple must be waited for, they took their station by one of the fires in the Octagon Room.  But hardly were they so settled, when the door opened again, and Captain Wentworth walked in alone.  Anne was the nearest to him, and making yet a little advance, she instantly spoke. He was preparing only to bow and pass on, but her gentle "How do you do?"
brought him out of the straight line to stand near her, and make enquiries in return, in spite of the formidable father and sister in the back ground. Their being in the back ground was a support to Anne; she knew nothing of their looks, and felt equal to everything which she believed right to be done.
While they were speaking, a whispering between her father and Elizabeth caught her ear.  She could not distinguish, but she must guess the subject; and on Captain Wentworth's making a distant bow, she comprehended that her father had judged so well as to give him that simple acknowledgement of acquaintance, and she was just in time
by a side glance to see a slight curtsey from Elizabeth herself.
This, though late, and reluctant, and ungracious, was yet better than nothing, and her spirits improved. After talking, however, of the weather, and Bath, and the concert, their conversation began to flag, and so little was said at last, that she was expecting him to go every moment, but he did not; he seemed in no hurry to leave her; and presently with renewed spirit, with a little smile, a little glow, he said-- "I have hardly seen you since our day at Lyme.  I am  you must have suffered from the shock, and the more from its not overpowering you at the time." She assured him that she had not.
"It was a frightful hour," said he, "a frightful day!" and he passed his hand across his eyes, as if the remembrance were still too painful, but in a moment, half smiling again, added, "The day has produced some effects however; has had some consequences which must be considered as the very reverse of frightful. When you had the presence of mind to suggest that Benwick would be the properest person to fetch a surgeon, you could have little idea of his being eventually one of those most concerned in her recovery." "Certainly I could have none.  But it appears--I should hope it would be a very happy match.  There are on both sides good principles and good temper." "Yes," said he, looking not exactly forward; "but there, I think, ends the resemblance.  With all my soul I wish them happy, and rejoice over every circumstance in favour of it.  They have no difficulties to contend with at home, no opposition, no caprice, no delays.
The Musgroves are behaving like themselves, most honourably and kindly, only anxious with true parental hearts to promote their daughter's comfort.
All this is much, very much in favour of their happiness; Are than perhaps--" He stopped.  A sudden recollection seemed to occur, and to give him some taste of that emotion which was reddening Anne's cheeks
and fixing her eyes on the ground.  After clearing his throat, however, he proceeded thus-- "I confess that I do think there is a disparity, too great a disparity, and in a point no less essential than mind.  I regard Louisa Musgrove as a very amiable, sweet-tempered girl, and not deficient in understanding, but Benwick is something more.  He is a clever man, a reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to her with some surprise.  Had it been the effect of gratitude, had he learnt to love her, because he believed her to be preferring him, it would have been another thing.  But I have no reason to suppose it so.
It seems, on the contrary, to have been a perfectly spontaneous,
untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me.  A man like him,
in his situation! with a heart pierced, wounded, almost broken!
Fanny Harville was a very superior creature, and his attachment to her was indeed attachment.  A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman.  He ought not; he does not."
Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered, or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused, and beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a moment.  It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet, after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking,
and having not the smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say-- "You were a good while at Lyme, I think?"
"About a fortnight.  I could not leave it till Louisa's doing well
was quite ascertained.  I had been too deeply concerned in the mischief to be soon at peace.  It had been my doing, solely mine.
She would not have been obstinate if I had not been weak.
The country round Lyme is very fine.  I walked and rode a great deal;
and the more I saw, the more I found to admire."
"I should very much like to see Lyme again," said Anne.
"Indeed!  I should not have supposed that you could have found
anything in Lyme to inspire such a feeling.  The horror and distress
you were involved in, the stretch of mind, the wear of spirits!
I should have thought your last impressions of Lyme must have been
strong disgust." "The last hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne; "but when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it,
unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering, which was
by no means the case at Lyme.  We were only in anxiety and distress
during the last two hours, and previously there had been a great deal
of enjoyment.  So much novelty and beauty! I have travelled so little, that every fresh place would be interesting to me; but there is real beauty at Lyme; and in short" (with a faint blush at some recollections), "altogether my impressions of the place are very agreeable." As she ceased, the entrance door opened again, and the very party appeared for whom they were waiting.  "Lady Dalrymple, Lady Dalrymple,"was the rejoicing sound; and with all the eagerness compatible with anxious elegance, Sir Walter and his two ladies stepped forward to meet her.  Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, escorted by Mr Elliot and Colonel Wallis, who had happened to arrive nearly at the same instant, advanced into the room.  The others joined them, and it was a group in which Anne found herself also necessarily included. She was divided from Captain Wentworth.  Their interesting, almost too interesting conversation must be broken up for a time, but slight was the penance compared with the happiness which brought it on! She had learnt, in the last ten minutes, more of his feelings towards Louisa, more of all his feelings than she dared to think of; and she gave herself up to the demands of the party, to the needful civilities of the moment, with exquisite, though agitated sensations.
She was in good humour with all.  She had received ideas which
disposed her to be courteous and kind to all, and to pity every one,
as being less happy than herself.
The delightful emotions were a little subdued, when on stepping back
from the group, to be joined again by Captain Wentworth, she saw
that he was gone.  She was just in time to see him turn into
the Concert Room.  He was gone; he had disappeared, she felt
a moment's regret.  But "they should meet again.  He would look for her, he would find her out before the evening were over, and at present, perhaps, it was as well to be asunder.  She was in need of
a little interval for recollection."
Upon Lady Russell's appearance soon afterwards, the whole party
was collected, and all that remained was to marshal themselves,
and proceed into the Concert Room; and be of all the consequence
in their power, draw as many eyes, excite as many whispers,
and disturb as many people as they could.
Very, very happy were both Elizabeth and Anne Elliot as they walked in. Elizabeth arm in arm with Miss Carteret, and looking on the broad back of the dowager Viscountess Dalrymple before her, had nothing to wish for which did not seem within her reach; and Anne--but it would be an insult to the nature of Anne's felicity, to draw any comparison
between it and her sister's; the origin of one all selfish vanity,
of the other all generous attachment.
Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room.
Her happiness was from within.  Her eyes were bright and her cheeks glowed; but she knew nothing about it.  She was thinking only of
the last half hour, and as they passed to their seats, her mind took
a hasty range over it.  His choice of subjects, his expressions,
and still more his manner and look, had been such as she could see
in only one light.  His opinion of Louisa Musgrove's inferiority,
an opinion which he had seemed solicitous to give, his wonder
at Captain Benwick, his feelings as to a first, strong attachment;
sentences begun which he could not finish, his half averted eyes
and more than half expressive glance, all, all declared that he had
a heart returning to her at least; that anger, resentment, avoidance,
were no more; and that they were succeeded, not merely by friendship
and regard, but by the tenderness of the past.  Yes, some share of
the tenderness of the past.  She could not contemplate the change
as implying less.  He must love her.
These were thoughts, with their attendant visions, which occupied
and flurried her too much to leave her any power of observation;
and she passed along the room without having a glimpse of him, Without even trying to discern him.  When their places were determined on, and they were all properly arranged, she looked round to see if he should happen to be in the same part of the room, but he was not; her eye could not reach him; and the concert being just opening, She must consent for a time to be happy in a humbler way.
The party was divided and disposed of on two contiguous benches:
Anne was among those on the foremost, and Mr Elliot had manoeuvred so well, with the assistance of his friend Colonel Wallis, as to have a seat by her.
Miss Elliot, surrounded by her cousins, and the principal object
of Colonel Wallis's gallantry, was quite contented.
Anne's mind was in a most favourable state for the entertainment
of the evening; it was just occupation enough:  she had feelings for
the tender, spirits for the gay, attention for the scientific, and patience for the wearisome; and had never liked a concert better, at least during the first act.  Towards the close of it, in the interval succeeding an Italian song, she explained the words of the song to Mr Elliot.  They had a concert bill between them.
"This," said she, "is nearly the sense, or rather the meaning of the words, for certainly the sense of an Italian love-song must not be talked of, but it is as nearly the meaning as I can give; for I do not pretend to understand the language.  I am a very poor Italian scholar." "Yes, yes, I see you are.  I see you know nothing of the matter. You have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear, comprehensible, elegant English.  You need not say anything more of your ignorance.  Here is complete proof."
"I will not oppose such kind politeness; but I should be sorry to be
examined by a real proficient."
"I have not had the pleasure of visiting in Camden Place so long,"
replied he, "without knowing something of Miss Anne Elliot;
and I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general
to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished
for modesty to be natural in any other woman."
"For shame! for shame! this is too much flattery.  I forget what we are to have next," turning to the bill.
"erhaps," said Mr Elliot, speaking low, "I have had a longer acquaintance with your character than you are aware of."
"Indeed!  How so?  You can have been acquainted with it only since
I came to Bath, excepting as you might hear me previously spoken of
in my own family." "I knew you by report long before you came to Bath.  I had heard you described by those who knew you intimately.  I have been acquainted with you by character many years.  Your person, your disposition, accomplishments, manner; they were all present to me." Mr Elliot was not disappointed in the interest he hoped to raise. No one can withstand the charm of such a mystery.  To have been described long ago to a recent acquaintance, by nameless people,
is irresistible; and Anne was all curiosity.  She wondered, and questioned him eagerly; but in vain.  He delighted in being asked,
but he would not tell.
"No, no, some time or other, perhaps, but not now.  He would mention
no names now; but such, he could assure her, had been the fact.
He had many years ago received such a description of Miss Anne Elliot
as had inspired him with the highest idea of her merit, and excited
the warmest curiosity to know her." Anne could think of no one so likely to have spoken with partiality of her many years ago as the Mr Wentworth of Monkford, Captain Wentworth's brother.  He might have been in Mr Elliot's company, but she had not courage to ask the question.
"The name of Anne Elliot," said he, "has long had an interesting sound to me. Very long has it possessed a charm over my fancy; and, if I dared, I would breathe my wishes that the name might never change." Such, she believed, were his words; but scarcely had she
received their sound, than her attention was caught by other sounds
immediately behind her, which rendered every thing else trivial.
Her father and Lady Dalrymple were speaking.
"A well-looking man," said Sir Walter, "a very well-looking man."
"A very fine young man indeed!" said Lady Dalrymple.  "More air
than one often sees in Bath.  Irish, I dare say."
"No, I just know his name.  A bowing acquaintance.  Wentworth;
Captain Wentworth of the navy.  His sister married my tenant
in Somersetshire, the Croft, who rents Kellynch."Before Sir Walter had reached this point, Anne's eyes had caught the right direction, and distinguished Captain Wentworth standing among a cluster of men at a little distance.  As her eyes fell on him, his seemed to be withdrawn from her.  It had that appearance.
It seemed as if she had been one moment too late; and as long as she
dared observe, he did not look again:  but the performance was recommencing, and she was forced to seem to restore her attention
to the orchestra and look straight forward.
When she could give another glance, he had moved away.  He could not have come nearer to her if he would; she was so surrounded and shut in: but she would rather have caught his eye.
Mr Elliot's speech, too, distressed her.  She had no longer any inclination to talk to him.  She wished him not so near her.
The first act was over.  Now she hoped for some beneficial change;
and, after a period of nothing-saying amongst the party, some of them
did decide on going in quest of tea.  Anne was one of the few who
did not choose to move.  She remained in her seat, and so did Lady Russell; but she had the pleasure of getting rid of Mr Elliot; and she did not mean, whatever she might feel on Lady Russell's account, to shrink from conversation with Captain Wentworth, if he gave her the opportunity. She was persuaded by Lady Russell's countenance that she had seen him.He did not come however.  Anne sometimes fancied she discerned him at a distance, but he never came.  The anxious interval
wore away unproductively.  The others returned, the room filled again, benches were reclaimed and repossessed, and another hour of pleasure or of penance was to be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed. To Anne, it chiefly wore the prospect of an hour of agitation. She could not quit that room in peace without seeing Captain Wentworth once more, without the interchange of one friendly look. In re-settling themselves there were now many changes, the result of which was favourable for her.  Colonel Wallis declined sitting down again, and Mr Elliot was invited by Elizabeth and Miss Carteret, in a manner not to be refused, to sit between them; and by some other removals, and a little scheming of her own,  Anne was enabled to place herself much nearer the end of the bench than she had been before, much more within reach of a passer-by.  She could not do so, without comparing herself with Miss Larolles, the inimitable Miss Larolles; but still she did it, and not with much happier effect; though by what seemed prosperity in the shape of an early abdication in her next neighbours, she found herself at the very end of the bench before the concert closed.
Such was her situation, with a vacant space at hand, when Captain Wentworth was again in sight.  She saw him not far off.  He saw her too; yet he looked grave, and seemed irresolute, and only by very slow degrees came at last near enough to speak to her.  She felt that something must be the matter.  The change was indubitable.  The difference between his present air and what it had been in the Octagon Room was strikingly great.  Why was it?  She thought of her father, of Lady Russell.  Could there have been any unpleasant ances?
He began by speaking of the concert gravely, more like the Captain
Wentworth of Uppercross; owned himself disappointed, had expected singing; and in short, must confess that he should not be sorry when it was over. Anne replied, and spoke in defense of the performance so well, and yet in allowance for his feelings so pleasantly, that his countenance improved, and he replied again with almost a smile.  They talked for a few minutes more; the improvement held; he even looked down towards the bench, as if he saw a place on it well worth occupying; when at that moment a touch on her shoulder obliged Anne to turn round. It came from Mr Elliot.  He begged her pardon, but she must be applied to, to explain Italian again.  Miss Carteret was very anxious to have a general idea of what was next to be sung.  Anne could not refuse; but never had she sacrificed to politeness with a more suffering spirit.
A few minutes, though as few as possible, were inevitably consumed;
and when her own mistress again, when able to turn and look as she had done before, she found herself accosted by Captain Wentworth,
in a reserved yet hurried sort of farewell.  "He must wish her good night; he was going; he should get home as fast as he could." "Is not this song worth staying for?" said Anne, suddenly struck by an idea which made her yet more anxious to be encouraging.
"No!" he replied impressively, "there is nothing worth my staying for;" and he was gone directly.
Jealousy of Mr Elliot!  It was the only intelligible motive.
Captain Wentworth jealous of her affection!  Could she have believed it a week ago; three hours ago!  For a moment the gratification was exquisite. But, alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed.
How was such jealousy to be quieted?  How was the truth to reach him?
How, in all the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he ever learn of her real sentiments?  It was misery to think of Mr Elliot's attentions.  Their evil was incalculable.

Chapter 19

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While Admiral Croft was taking this walk with Anne, and expressing

his wish of getting Captain Wentworth to Bath, Captain Wentworth

was already on his way thither.  Before Mrs Croft had written,

he was arrived, and the very next time Anne walked out, she saw him.
  
  

Mr Elliot was attending his two cousins and Mrs Clay.  They were

in Milsom Street.  It began to rain, not much, but enough to

make shelter desirable for women, and quite enough to make it

very desirable for Miss Elliot to have the advantage of being

conveyed home in Lady Dalrymple's carriage, which was seen waiting

at a little distance; she, Anne, and Mrs Clay, therefore,

turned into Molland's, while Mr Elliot stepped to Lady Dalrymple,

to request her assistance.  He soon joined them again, successful,

of course; Lady Dalrymple would be most happy to take them home,

and would call for them in a few minutes.
  
  

Her ladyship's carriage was a barouche, and did not hold

more than four with any comfort.  Miss Carteret was with her mother;

consequently it was not reasonable to expect accommodation

for all the three Camden Place ladies.  There could be no doubt

as to Miss Elliot.  Whoever suffered inconvenience, she must suffer none,

but it occupied a little time to settle the point of civility

between the other two.  The rain was a mere trifle, and Anne was

most sincere in preferring a walk with Mr Elliot.  But the rain was also

a mere trifle to Mrs Clay; she would hardly allow it even to drop at all,

and her boots were so thick! much thicker than Miss Anne's;

and, in short, her civility rendered her quite as anxious to be left

to walk with Mr Elliot as Anne could be, and it was discussed between them

with a generosity so polite and so determined, that the others were

obliged to settle it for them; Miss Elliot maintaining that Mrs Clay

had a little cold already, and Mr Elliot deciding on appeal,

that his cousin Anne's boots were rather the thickest.
  
  

It was fixed accordingly, that Mrs Clay should be of the party

in the carriage; and they had just reached this point, when Anne,

as she sat near the window, descried, most decidedly and distinctly,

Captain Wentworth walking down the street.
  
  

Her start was perceptible only to herself; but she instantly felt that

she was the greatest simpleton in the world, the most unaccountable

and absurd!  For a few minutes she saw nothing before her;

it was all confusion.  She was lost, and when she had scolded

back her senses, she found the others still waiting for the carriage,

and Mr Elliot (always obliging) just setting off for Union Street

on a commission of Mrs Clay's.
  
  

She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door;

she wanted to see if it rained.  Why was she to suspect herself

of another motive?  Captain Wentworth must be out of sight.

She left her seat, she would go; one half of her should not be always

so much wiser than the other half, or always suspecting the other

of being worse than it was.  She would see if it rained.

She was sent back, however, in a moment by the entrance of

Captain Wentworth himself, among a party of gentlemen and ladies,

evidently his acquaintance, and whom he must have joined

a little below Milsom Street.  He was more obviously struck

and confused by the sight of her than she had ever observed before;

he looked quite red.  For the first time, since their renewed acquaintance,

she felt that she was betraying the least sensibility of the two.

She had the advantage of him in the preparation of the last few moments.

All the overpowering, blinding, bewildering, first effects

of strong surprise were over with her.  Still, however,

she had enough to feel!  It was agitation, pain, pleasure,

a something between delight and misery.
  
  

He spoke to her, and then turned away.  The character of his manner

was embarrassment.  She could not have called it either cold or friendly,

or anything so certainly as embarrassed.
  
  

After a short interval, however, he came towards her, and spoke again.

Mutual enquiries on common subjects passed:  neither of them, probably,

much the wiser for what they heard, and Anne continuing fully sensible

of his being less at ease than formerly.  They had by dint of being

so very much together, got to speak to each other with a considerable

portion of apparent indifference and calmness; but he could not do it now.

Time had changed him, or Louisa had changed him.  There was consciousness

of some sort or other.  He looked very well, not as if he had been

suffering in health or spirits, and he talked of Uppercross,

of the Musgroves, nay, even of Louisa, and had even a momentary look

of his own arch significance as he named her; but yet it was

Captain Wentworth not comfortable, not easy, not able to feign that he was.
  
  

It did not surprise, but it grieved Anne to observe that Elizabeth

would not know him.  She saw that he saw Elizabeth, that Elizabeth saw him,

that there was complete internal recognition on each side;

she was convinced that he was ready to be acknowledged as an acquaintance,

expecting it, and she had the pain of seeing her sister turn away

with unalterable coldness.
  
  

Lady Dalrymple's carriage, for which Miss Elliot was growing

very impatient, now drew up; the servant came in to announce it.

It was beginning to rain again, and altogether there was a delay,

and a bustle, and a talking, which must make all the little crowd

in the shop understand that Lady Dalrymple was calling to convey

Miss Elliot.  At last Miss Elliot and her friend, unattended but

by the servant, (for there was no cousin returned), were walking off;

and Captain Wentworth, watching them, turned again to Anne,

and by manner, rather than words, was offering his services to her.
  
  

"I am much obliged to you," was her answer, "but I am not going with them.

The carriage would not accommodate so many.  I walk:  I prefer walking."
  
  

"But it rains."
  
  

"Oh! very little,  Nothing that I regard."
  
  

After a moment's pause he said:  "Though I came only yesterday,

I have equipped myself properly for Bath already, you see,"

(pointing to a new umbrella); "I wish you would make use of it,

if you are determined to walk; though I think it would be more prudent

to let me get you a chair."
  
  

She was very much obliged to him, but declined it all, repeating

her conviction, that the rain would come to nothing at present,

and adding, "I am only waiting for Mr Elliot.  He will be here in a moment,

I am sure."
  
  

She had hardly spoken the words when Mr Elliot walked in.

Captain Wentworth recollected him perfectly.  There was no difference

between him and the man who had stood on the steps at Lyme,

admiring Anne as she passed, except in the air and look and manner

of the privileged relation and friend.  He came in with eagerness,

appeared to see and think only of her, apologised for his stay,

was grieved to have kept her waiting, and anxious to get her away

without further loss of time and before the rain increased;

and in another moment they walked off together, her arm under his,

a gentle and embarrassed glance, and a "Good morning to you!"

being all that she had time for, as she passed away.
  
  

As soon as they were out of sight, the ladies of Captain Wentworth's party

began talking of them.
  
  

"Mr Elliot does not dislike his cousin, I fancy?"
  
  

"Oh! no, that is clear enough.  One can guess what will happen there.

He is always with them; half lives in the family, I believe.

What a very good-looking man!"
  
  

"Yes, and Miss Atkinson, who dined with him once at the Wallises,

says he is the most agreeable man she ever was in company with."
  
  

"She is pretty, I think; Anne Elliot; very pretty, when one comes

to look at her.  It is not the fashion to say so, but I confess

I admire her more than her sister."
  
  

"Oh! so do I."
  
  

"And so do I.  No comparison.  But the men are all wild after Miss Elliot.

Anne is too delicate for them."
  
  

Anne would have been particularly obliged to her cousin, if he would have

walked by her side all the way to Camden Place, without saying a word.

She had never found it so difficult to listen to him, though nothing

could exceed his solicitude and care, and though his subjects

were principally such as were wont to be always interesting:

praise, warm, just, and discriminating, of Lady Russell,

and insinuations highly rational against Mrs Clay.  But just now

she could think only of Captain Wentworth.  She could not understand

his present feelings, whether he were really suffering much

from disappointment or not; and till that point were settled,

she could not be quite herself.
  
  

She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! alas!

she must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.
  
  

Another circumstance very essential for her to know, was how long

he meant to be in Bath; he had not mentioned it, or she could not

recollect it.  He might be only passing through.  But it was more probable

that he should be come to stay.  In that case, so liable as every body was

to meet every body in Bath, Lady Russell would in all likelihood

see him somewhere.  Would she recollect him?  How would it all be?
  
  

She had already been obliged to tell Lady Russell that Louisa Musgrove

was to marry Captain Benwick.  It had cost her something to encounter

Lady Russell's surprise; and now, if she were by any chance

to be thrown into company with Captain Wentworth, her imperfect knowledge

of the matter might add another shade of prejudice against him.
  
  

The following morning Anne was out with her friend, and for the first hour,

in an incessant and fearful sort of watch for him in vain; but at last,

in returning down Pulteney Street, she distinguished him

on the right hand pavement at such a distance as to have him in view

the greater part of the street.  There were many other men about him,

many groups walking the same way, but there was no mistaking him.

She looked instinctively at Lady Russell; but not from any mad idea

of her recognising him so soon as she did herself.  No, it was

not to be supposed that Lady Russell would perceive him till they

were nearly opposite.  She looked at her however, from time to time,

anxiously; and when the moment approached which must point him out,

though not daring to look again (for her own countenance she knew

was unfit to be seen), she was yet perfectly conscious of

Lady Russell's eyes being turned exactly in the direction for him--

of her being, in short, intently observing him.  She could thoroughly

comprehend the sort of fascination he must possess over Lady Russell's mind,

the difficulty it must be for her to withdraw her eyes, the astonishment

she must be feeling that eight or nine years should have passed over him,

and in foreign climes and in active service too, without robbing him

of one personal grace!
  
  

At last, Lady Russell drew back her head.  "Now, how would she

speak of him?"
  
  

"You will wonder," said she, "what has been fixing my eye so long;

but I was looking after some window-curtains, which Lady Alicia and

Mrs Frankland were telling me of last night.  They described

the drawing-room window-curtains of one of the houses on this

side of the way, and this part of the street, as being the handsomest

and best hung of any in Bath, but could not recollect the exact number,

and I have been trying to find out which it could be; but I confess

I can see no curtains hereabouts that answer their description."
  
  

Anne sighed and blushed and smiled, in pity and disdain,

either at her friend or herself.  The part which provoked her most,

was that in all this waste of foresight and caution, she should have

lost the right moment for seeing whether he saw them.
  
  

A day or two passed without producing anything.  The theatre or the rooms,

where he was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough

for the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the

elegant stupidity of private parties, in which they were getting

more and more engaged; and Anne, wearied of such a state of stagnation,

sick of knowing nothing, and fancying herself stronger because

her strength was not tried, was quite impatient for the concert evening.

It was a concert for the benefit of a person patronised by Lady Dalrymple.

Of course they must attend.  It was really expected to be a good one,

and Captain Wentworth was very fond of music.  If she could only have

a few minutes conversation with him again, she fancied she should

be satisfied; and as to the power of addressing him, she felt all over

courage if the opportunity occurred.  Elizabeth had turned from him,

Lady Russell overlooked him; her nerves were strengthened

by these circumstances; she felt that she owed him attention.
  
  

She had once partly promised Mrs Smith to spend the evening with her;

but in a short hurried call she excused herself and put it off,

with the more decided promise of a longer visit on the morrow.

Mrs Smith gave a most good-humoured acquiescence.
  
  

"By all means," said she; "only tell me all about it, when you do come.

Who is your party?"
  
  

Anne named them all.  Mrs Smith made no reply; but when she was

leaving her said, and with an expression half serious, half arch,

"Well, I heartily wish your concert may answer; and do not fail me

to-morrow if you can come; for I begin to have a foreboding

that I may not have many more visits from you."
  
  

Anne was startled and confused; but after standing in a moment's suspense,

was obliged, and not sorry to be obliged, to hurry away.

Chapter 18

It was the beginning of February; and Anne, having been a month in Bath,was growing very eager for news from Uppercross and Lyme.
She wanted to hear much more than Mary had communicated.
It was three weeks since she had heard at all.  She only knew
that Henrietta was at home again; and that Louisa, though considered to be recovering fast, was still in Lyme; and she was thinking of them all very intently one evening, when a thicker letter than usual from Mary was delivered to her; and, to quicken the pleasure and surprise, ith Admiral and Mrs Croft's compliments.
The Crofts must be in Bath!  A circumstance to interest her.
They were people whom her heart turned to very naturally.
"What is this?" cried Sir Walter.  "The Crofts have arrived in Bath?
The Crofts who rent Kellynch?  What have they brought you?"
"A letter from Uppercross Cottage, Sir."
"Oh! those letters are convenient passports.  They secure an introduction.
I should have visited Admiral Croft, however, at any rate.
I know what is due to my tenant."
Anne could listen no longer; she could not even have told how
the poor Admiral's complexion escaped; her letter engrossed her.
It had been begun several days back.
"February 1st.
"My dear Anne,--I make no apology for my silence, because I know
how little people think of letters in such a place as Bath.
You must be a great deal too happy to care for Uppercross, which,
as you well know, affords little to write about.  We have had
a very dull Christmas; Mr and Mrs Musgrove have not had one dinner party all the holidays.  I do not reckon the Hayters as anybody.
The holidays, however, are over at last:  I believe no children ever had such long ones.  I am sure I had not.  The house was cleared yesterday, except of the little Harvilles; but you will be surprised to hear they have never gone home.  Mrs Harville must be an odd mother to part with them so long.  I do not understand it.  They are
not at all nice children, in my opinion; but Mrs Musgrove seems to
like them quite as well, if not better, than her grandchildren.
What dreadful weather we have had!  It may not be felt in Bath,
with your nice pavements; but in the country it is of some consequence.
I have not had a creature call on me since the second week in January, except Charles Hayter, who had been calling much oftener than was welcome.
Between ourselves, I think it a great pity Henrietta did not remain at Lyme as long as Louisa; it would have kept her a little out of his way. The carriage is gone to-day, to bring Louisa and the Harvilles to-morrow.
We are not asked to dine with them, however, till the day after,
Mrs Musgrove is so  of her being fatigued by the journey,
which is not very likely, considering the care that will be taken of her; and it would be much more convenient to me to dine there to-morrow. I am glad you find Mr Elliot so agreeable, and wish I could be acquainted with him too; but I have my usual luck:  I am always out of the way when any thing desirable is going on; always the last of my family to be noticed.  What an immense time Mrs Clay has been staying with Elizabeth!  Does she never mean to go away?  But perhaps
if she were to leave the room vacant, we might not be invited.
Let me know what you think of this.  I do not expect my children to be asked, you know.  I can leave them at the Great House very well,
for a month or six weeks.  I have this moment heard that the Crofts
are going to Bath almost immediately; they think the Admiral gouty.
Charles heard it quite by chance; they have not had the civility
to give me any notice, or of offering to take anything.
I do not think they improve at all as neighbours.  We see nothing of them, and this is really an instance of gross inattention.  Charles joins me in love, and everything proper.  Yours affectionately,
"Mary M---. "I am sorry to say that I am very far from well; and Jemima has just told me that the butcher says there is a bad sore-throat very much about.  I dare say I shall catch it; and my sore-throats, you know, are always worse than anybody's." So ended the first part, which had been afterwards put into an envelope, ontaining nearly as much more.
"I kept my letter open, that I might send you word how Louisa bore her journey, and now I am extremely glad I did, having a great deal to add.  In the first place, I had a note from Mrs Croft yesterday,
offering to convey anything to you; a very kind, friendly note indeed, addressed to me, just as it ought; I shall therefore be able to make my letter as long as I like.  The Admiral does not seem very ill, and I sincerely hope Bath will do him all the good he wants.
I shall be truly glad to have them back again.  Our neighbourhood
cannot spare such a pleasant family.  But now for Louisa.
I have something to communicate that will astonish you not a little.
She and the Harvilles came on Tuesday very safely, and in the evening
we went to ask her how she did, when we were rather surprised
not to find Captain Benwick of the party, for he had been invited
as well as the Harvilles; and what do you think was the reason?
Neither more nor less than his being in love with Louisa, and not choosing to venture to Uppercross till he had had an answer from Mr Musgrove; for it was all settled between him and her before she came away, and he had written to her father by Captain Harville.
True, upon my honour!  Are not you astonished?  I shall be surprised
at least if you ever received a hint of it, for I never did.
Mrs Musgrove protests solemnly that she knew nothing of the matter.
We are all very well pleased, however, for though it is not equal to her marrying Captain Wentworth, it is infinitely better than Charles Hayter; and Mr Musgrove has written his consent, and Captain Benwick
is expected to-day.  Mrs Harville says her husband feels a good deal
on his poor sister's account; but, however, Louisa is a great favourite with both.  Indeed, Mrs Harville and I quite agree that we love her the better for having nursed her.  Charles wonders what Captain Wentworth will say; but if you remember, I never thought him attached to Louisa; I never could see anything of it.  And this is the end, you see, of Captain Benwick's being supposed to be an admirer of yours. How Charles could take such a thing into his head was always incomprehensible to me.  I hope he will be more agreeable now. Certainly not a great match for Louisa Musgrove, but a million times better than marrying among the Hayters." Mary need not have feared her sister's being in any degree prepared for the news.  She had never in her life been more astonished.
Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove!  It was almost too wonderful
for belief, and it was with the greatest effort that she could remain
in the room, preserve an air of calmness, and answer the common questions of the moment.  Happily for her, they were not many.  Sir Walter wanted to know whether the Crofts travelled with four horses,
and whether they were likely to be situated in such a part of Bath
as it might suit Miss Elliot and himself to visit in; but had little curiosity beyond.
"How is Mary?" said Elizabeth; and without waiting for an answer,
"And pray what brings the Crofts to Bath?"
"They come on the Admiral's account.  He is thought to be gouty."
"Gout and decrepitude!" said Sir Walter.  "oor old gentleman."
"Have they any acquaintance here?" asked Elizabeth.
"I do not know; but I can hardly suppose that, at Admiral Croft's
time of life, and in his profession, he should not have many acquaintance in such a place as this."
"I suspect," said Sir Walter coolly, "that Admiral Croft will be best known in Bath as the renter of Kellynch Hall.
Elizabeth, may we venture to present him and his wife in Laura Place?" "Oh, no! I think not.  Situated as we are with Lady Dalrymple, cousins, we ought to be very careful not to embarrass her with acquaintance she might not approve.  If we were not related, it would not signify; but as cousins, she would feel scrupulous as to any proposal of ours.We had better leave the Crofts to find their own level. There are several odd-looking men walking about here, who,
I am told, are sailors.  The Crofts will associate with them."
this was Sir Walter and Elizabeth's share of interest in the letter;
when Mrs Clay had paid her tribute of more decent attention,
in an enquiry after Mrs Charles Musgrove, and her fine little boys,
Anne was at liberty.
In her own room, she tried to comprehend it.  Well might Charles wonder how Captain Wentworth would feel!  Perhaps he had quitted the field, had given Louisa up, had ceased to love, had found he did not love her. She could not endure the idea of treachery or levity, or anything akin to ill usage between him and his friend.  She could not endure that such a friendship as theirs should be severed unfairly.
Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove!  The high-spirited, joyous-talking Louisa Musgrove, and the dejected, thinking, feeling, reading, Captain Benwick, seemed each of them everything that would not suit the other.  Their minds most dissimilar! Where could have been the attraction?  The answer soon presented itself.
It had been in situation.  They had been thrown together several weeks; they had been living in the same small family party:  since Henrietta's coming away, they must have been depending almost entirely on each other, and Louisa, just recovering from illness, had been in an interesting state, and Captain Benwick was not inconsolable.  That was a point which Anne had not been able to avoid suspecting before; and instead of drawing the same conclusion as Mary, from the present course of events, they served only to confirm the idea of his having felt some dawning of tenderness toward herself.  She did not mean, however, to derive much more from it to gratify her vanity, than Mary might have allowed.  She was persuaded that any tolerably pleasing young woman who had listened and seemed to feel for him would have received the same compliment.  He had an affectionate heart. He must love somebody.
She saw no reason against their being happy.  Louisa had fine
naval fervour to begin with, and they would soon grow more alike.
He would gain cheerfulness, and she would learn to be an enthusiast
for Scott and Lord Byron; nay, that was probably learnt already;
of course they had fallen in love over poetry.  The idea of Louisa Musgrove turned into a person of literary taste, and sentimental reflection was amusing, but she had no doubt of its being so.  The day at Lyme, the fall from the Cobb, might influence her health, her nerves, her courage, her character to the end of her life, as thoroughly as it appeared to have influenced her fate.
The conclusion of the whole was, that if the woman who had been sensible of Captain Wentworth's merits could be allowed to prefer another man, there was nothing in the engagement to excite lasting wonder; and if Captain Wentworth lost no friend by it, certainly nothing to be regretted.  No, it was not regret which made Anne's heart beat in spite of herself, and brought the colour into her cheeks when she thought of Captain Wentworth unshackled and free.
She had some feelings which she was ashamed to investigate.
They were too much like joy, senseless joy!
She longed to see the Crofts; but when the meeting took place,
it was evident that no rumour of the news had yet reached them.
The visit of ceremony was paid and returned; and Louisa Musgrove
was mentioned, and Captain Benwick, too, without even half a smile.
The Crofts had placed themselves in lodgings in Gay Street, perfectly to Sir Walter's satisfaction.  He was not at all ashamed of the acquaintance, and did, in fact, think and talk a great deal more
about the Admiral, than the Admiral ever thought or talked about him.
The Crofts knew quite as many people in Bath as they wished for, and considered their intercourse with the Elliots as a mere matter of form, and not in the least likely to afford them any pleasure. They brought with them their country habit of being almost always together. He was ordered to walk to keep off the gout, and Mrs Croft
seemed to go shares with him in everything, and to walk
for her life to do him good.  Anne saw them wherever she went.
Lady Russell took her out in her carriage almost every morning,
and she never failed to think of them, and never failed to see them.
Knowing their feelings as she did, it was a most attractive picture
of happiness to her.  She always watched them as long as she could,
delighted to fancy she understood what they might be talking of,
as they walked along in happy independence, or equally delighted
to see the Admiral's hearty shake of the hand when he encountered
an old friend, and observe their eagerness of conversation
when occasionally forming into a little knot of the navy, Mrs Croft
looking as intelligent and keen as any of the officers around her.
Anne was too much engaged with Lady Russell to be often walking herself; but it so happened that one morning, about a week or ten days
after the Croft's arrival, it suited her best to leave her friend,
or her friend's carriage, in the lower part of the town, and return alone to Camden Place, and in walking up Milsom Street she had the good fortune to meet with the Admiral.  He was standing by himself at a printshop window, with his hands behind him, in earnest contemplation of some print, and she not only might have passed him unseen, but was obliged to touch as well as address him before she could catch his notice.  When he did perceive and acknowledge her, however, it was done with all his usual frankness and good humour.  "Ha! is it you?  Thank you, thank you.
This is treating me like a friend.  Here I am, you see, staring at a picture.  I can never get by this shop without stopping. But what a thing here is, by way of a boat!  Do look at it.
Did you ever see the like?  What queer fellows your fine painters must be, to think that anybody would venture their lives in such a shapeless old cockleshell as that?  And yet here are two gentlemen
stuck up in it mightily at their ease, and looking about them at the rocks and mountains, as if they were not to be upset the next moment,
which they certainly must be.  I wonder where that boat was built!"
(laughing heartily); "I would not venture over a horsepond in it.
Well," (turning away), "now, where are you bound?  Can I go anywhere
for you, or with you?  Can I be of any use?"
"None, I thank you, unless you will give me the pleasure of your company the little way our road lies together.  I am going home."
"That I will, with all my heart, and farther, too.  Yes, yes

we will have a snug walk together, and I have something to tell you

as we go along.  There, take my arm; that's right; I do not

feel comfortable if I have not a woman there.  Lord! what a boat it is!"

taking a last look at the picture, as they began to be in motion.
  
  

"Did you say that you had something to tell me, sir?"
  
  

"Yes, I have, presently.  But here comes a friend, Captain Brigden;

I shall only say, `How d'ye do?' as we pass, however.  I shall not stop.

`How d'ye do?'  Brigden stares to see anybody with me but my wife.

She, poor soul, is tied by the leg.  She has a blister on one of her heels,

as large as a three-shilling piece.  If you look across the street,

you will see Admiral Brand coming down and his brother.  Shabby fellows,

both of them!  I am glad they are not on this side of the way.

Sophy cannot bear them.  They played me a pitiful trick once:

got away with some of my best men.  I will tell you the whole story

another time.  There comes old Sir Archibald Drew and his grandson.

Look, he sees us; he kisses his hand to you; he takes you for my wife.

Ah! the peace has come too soon for that younker.  Poor old Sir Archibald!

How do you like Bath, Miss Elliot?  It suits us very well.

We are always meeting with some old friend or other; the streets

full of them every morning; sure to have plenty of chat;

and then we get away from them all, and shut ourselves in our lodgings,

and draw in our chairs, and are snug as if we were at Kellynch,

ay, or as we used to be even at North Yarmouth and Deal.

We do not like our lodgings here the worse, I can tell you,

for putting us in mind of those we first had at North Yarmouth.

The wind blows through one of the cupboards just in the same way."
  
  

When they were got a little farther, Anne ventured to press again

for what he had to communicate.  She hoped when clear of Milsom Street

to have her curiosity gratified; but she was still obliged to wait,

for the Admiral had made up his mind not to begin till they had

gained the greater space and quiet of Belmont; and as she was

not really Mrs Croft, she must let him have his own way.

As soon as they were fairly ascending Belmont, he began--
  
  

"Well, now you shall hear something that will surprise you.

But first of all, you must tell me the name of the young lady

I am going to talk about.  That young lady, you know, that we have

all been so concerned for.  The Miss Musgrove, that all this has been

happening to.  Her Christian name:  I always forget her Christian name."
  
  

Anne had been ashamed to appear to comprehend so soon as she really

did; but now she could safely suggest the name of "Louisa."
  
  

"Ay, ay, Miss Louisa Musgrove, that is the name.  I wish young ladies

had not such a number of fine Christian names.  I should never be out

if they were all Sophys, or something of that sort.  Well,

this Miss Louisa, we all thought, you know, was to marry Frederick.

He was courting her week after week.  The only wonder was,

what they could be waiting for, till the business at Lyme came;

then, indeed, it was clear enough that they must wait till her brain

was set to right.  But even then there was something odd in their

way of going on.  Instead of staying at Lyme, he went off to Plymouth,

and then he went off to see Edward.  When we came back from Minehead

he was gone down to Edward's, and there he has been ever since.

We have seen nothing of him since November.  Even Sophy could

not understand it.  But now, the matter has take the strangest turn of all;

for this young lady, the same Miss Musgrove, instead of being

to marry Frederick, is to marry James Benwick.  You know James Benwick."
  
  

"A little.  I am a little acquainted with Captain Benwick."
  
  

"Well, she is to marry him.  Nay, most likely they are married already,

for I do not know what they should wait for."
  
  

"I thought Captain Benwick a very pleasing young man," said Anne,

"and I understand that he bears an excellent character."
  
  

"Oh! yes, yes, there is not a word to be said against James Benwick.

He is only a commander, it is true, made last summer, and these are

bad times for getting on, but he has not another fault that I know of.

An excellent, good-hearted fellow, I assure you; a very active,

zealous officer too, which is more than you would think for, perhaps,

for that soft sort of manner does not do him justice."
  
  

"Indeed you are mistaken there, sir; I should never augur want of spirit

from Captain Benwick's manners.  I thought them particularly pleasing,

and I will answer for it, they would generally please."
"Well, well, ladies are the best judges; but J

Chapter 17

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While Sir Walter and Elizabeth were assiduously pushing their

good fortune in Laura Place, Anne was renewing an acquaintance

of a very different description.
  
  

She had called on her former governess, and had heard from her

of there being an old school-fellow in Bath, who had the two strong claims

on her attention of past kindness and present suffering.  Miss Hamilton,

now Mrs Smith, had shewn her kindness in one of those periods of her life

when it had been most valuable.  Anne had gone unhappy to school,

grieving for the loss of a mother whom she had dearly loved,

feeling her separation from home, and suffering as a girl of fourteen,

of strong sensibility and not high spirits, must suffer at such a time;

and Miss Hamilton, three years older than herself, but still from the want

of near relations and a settled home, remaining another year at school,

had been useful and good to her in a way which had considerably lessened

her misery, and could never be remembered with indifference.
  
  

Miss Hamilton had left school, had married not long afterwards,

was said to have married a man of fortune, and this was all

that Anne had known of her, till now that their governess's account

brought her situation forward in a more decided but very different form.
  
  

She was a widow and poor.  Her husband had been extravagant;

and at his death, about two years before, had left his affairs

dreadfully involved.  She had had difficulties of every sort

to contend with, and in addition to these distresses had been afflicted

with a severe rheumatic fever, which, finally settling in her legs,

had made her for the present a cripple.  She had come to Bath

on that account, and was now in lodgings near the hot baths,

living in a very humble way, unable even to afford herself

the comfort of a servant, and of course almost excluded from society.
  
  

Their mutual friend answered for the satisfaction which a visit

from Miss Elliot would give Mrs Smith, and Anne therefore

lost no time in going.  She mentioned nothing of what she had heard,

or what she intended, at home.  It would excite no proper interest there.

She only consulted Lady Russell, who entered thoroughly into her sentiments,

and was most happy to convey her as near to Mrs Smith's lodgings

in Westgate Buildings, as Anne chose to be taken.
  
  

The visit was paid, their acquaintance re-established, their interest

in each other more than re-kindled.  The first ten minutes

had its awkwardness and its emotion.  Twelve years were gone

since they had parted, and each presented a somewhat different person

from what the other had imagined.  Twelve years had changed Anne

from the blooming, silent, unformed girl of fifteen, to the elegant

little woman of seven-and-twenty, with every beauty except bloom,

and with manners as consciously right as they were invariably gentle;

and twelve years had transformed the fine-looking, well-grown Miss Hamilton,

in all the glow of health and confidence of superiority, into a poor,

infirm, helpless widow, receiving the visit of her former protegee

as a favour; but all that was uncomfortable in the meeting had soon

passed away, and left only the interesting charm of remembering

former partialities and talking over old times.
  
  

Anne found in Mrs Smith the good sense and agreeable manners which

she had almost ventured to depend on, and a disposition to converse

and be cheerful beyond her expectation.  Neither the dissipations

of the past--and she had lived very much in the world--nor the restrictions

of the present, neither sickness nor sorrow seemed to have

closed her heart or ruined her spirits.
  
  

In the course of a second visit she talked with great openness,

and Anne's astonishment increased.  She could scarcely imagine

a more cheerless situation in itself than Mrs Smith's.  She had been

very fond of her husband:  she had buried him.  She had been

used to affluence:  it was gone.  She had no child to connect her

with life and happiness again, no relations to assist in the arrangement

of perplexed affairs, no health to make all the rest supportable.

Her accommodations were limited to a noisy parlour, and a dark bedroom

behind, with no possibility of moving from one to the other without

assistance, which there was only one servant in the house to afford,

and she never quitted the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath.

Yet, in spite of all this, Anne had reason to believe that she had

moments only of languor and depression, to hours of occupation

and enjoyment.  How could it be?  She watched, observed, reflected,

and finally determined that this was not a case of fortitude

or of resignation only.  A submissive spirit might be patient,

a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more;

here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted,

that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment

which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone.

It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend

as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment,

it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.
  
  

There had been a time, Mrs Smith told her, when her spirits

had nearly failed.  She could not call herself an invalid now,

compared with her state on first reaching Bath.  Then she had, indeed,

been a pitiable object; for she had caught cold on the journey,

and had hardly taken possession of her lodgings before she was again

confined to her bed and suffering under severe and constant pain;

and all this among strangers, with the absolute necessity of having

a regular nurse, and finances at that moment particularly unfit

to meet any extraordinary expense.  She had weathered it, however,

and could truly say that it had done her good.  It had increased

her comforts by making her feel herself to be in good hands.

She had seen too much of the world, to expect sudden or disinterested

attachment anywhere, but her illness had proved to her that her landlady

had a character to preserve, and would not use her ill; and she had been

particularly fortunate in her nurse, as a sister of her landlady,

a nurse by profession, and who had always a home in that house

when unemployed, chanced to be at liberty just in time to attend her.

"And she," said Mrs Smith, "besides nursing me most admirably,

has really proved an invaluable acquaintance.  As soon as I could

use my hands she taught me to knit, which has been a great amusement;

and she put me in the way of making these little thread-cases,

pin-cushions and card-racks, which you always find me so busy about,

and which supply me with the means of doing a little good

to one or two very poor families in this neighbourhood.

She had a large acquaintance, of course professionally, among those

who can afford to buy, and she disposes of my merchandize.

She always takes the right time for applying.  Everybody's heart is open,

you know, when they have recently escaped from severe pain,

or are recovering the blessing of health, and Nurse Rooke

thoroughly understands when to speak.  She is a shrewd, intelligent,

sensible woman.  Hers is a line for seeing human nature; and she has

a fund of good sense and observation, which, as a companion, make her

infinitely superior to thousands of those who having only received

`the best education in the world,' know nothing worth attending to.

Call it gossip, if you will, but when Nurse Rooke has half an hour's

leisure to bestow on me, she is sure to have something to relate

that is entertaining and profitable:  something that makes one

know one's species better.  One likes to hear what is going on,

to be au fait as to the newest modes of being trifling and silly.

To me, who live so much alone, her conversation, I assure you, is a treat."
  
  

Anne, far from wishing to cavil at the pleasure, replied,

"I can easily believe it.  Women of that class have great opportunities,

and if they are intelligent may be well worth listening to.

Such varieties of human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing!

And it is not merely in its follies, that they are well read;

for they see it occasionally under every circumstance that can be

most interesting or affecting.  What instances must pass before them

of ardent, disinterested, self-denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude,

patience, resignation:  of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices

that ennoble us most.  A sick chamber may often furnish

the worth of volumes."
  
  

"Yes," said Mrs Smith more doubtingly, "sometimes it may,

though I fear its lessons are not often in the elevated  you describe.

Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial;

but generally speaking, it is its weakness and not its strength

that appears in a sick chamber:  it is selfishness and impatience

rather than generosity and fortitude, that one hears of.

There is so little real friendship in the world! and unfortunately"

(speaking low and tremulously) "there are so many who forget

to think seriously till it is almost too late."
  
  

Anne saw the misery of such feelings.  The husband had not been

what he ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind

which made her think worse of the world than she hoped it deserved.

It was but a passing emotion however with Mrs Smith; she shook it off,

and soon added in a different tone--
  
  

"I do not suppose the situation my friend Mrs Rooke is in at present,

will furnish much either to interest or edify me.  She is only nursing

Chapter 16

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was one point which Anne, on returning to her family,

would have been more thankful to ascertain even than Mr Elliot's

being in love with Elizabeth, which was, her father's not being

in love with Mrs Clay; and she was very far from easy about it,

when she had been at home a few hours.  On going down to breakfast

the next morning, she found there had just been a decent pretence

on the lady's side of meaning to leave them.  She could imagine Mrs Clay

to have said, that "now Miss Anne was come, she could not suppose herself

at all wanted;" for Elizabeth was replying in a sort of whisper,

"That must not be any reason, indeed.  I assure you I feel it none.

She is nothing to me, compared with you;"  and she was in full time

to hear her father say, "My dear madam, this must not be.  As yet,

you have seen nothing of Bath.  You have been here only to be useful.

You must not run away from us now.  You must stay to be acquainted

with Mrs Wallis, the beautiful Mrs Wallis.  To your fine mind,

I well know the sight of beauty is a real gratification."
  
  

He spoke and looked so much in earnest, that Anne was not surprised

to see Mrs Clay stealing a glance at Elizabeth and herself.

Her countenance, perhaps, might express some watchfulness;

but the praise of the fine mind did not appear to excite a thought

in her sister.  The lady could not but yield to such joint entreaties,

and promise to stay.
  
  

In the course of the same morning, Anne and her father chancing to be

alone together, he began to compliment her on her improved looks;

he thought her "less thin in her person, in her cheeks; her skin,

her complexion, greatly improved; clearer, fresher.  Had she been

using any thing in particular?"  "No, nothing."  "Merely Gowland,"

he supposed.  "No, nothing at all."  "Ha! he was surprised at that;"

and added, "certainly you cannot do better than to continue as you are;

you cannot be better than well; or I should recommend Gowland,

the constant use of Gowland, during the spring months.  Mrs Clay has been

using it at my recommendation, and you see what it has done for her.

You see how it has carried away her freckles."
  
  

If Elizabeth could but have heard this!  Such personal praise

might have struck her, especially as it did not appear to Anne

that the freckles were at all lessened.  But everything must

take its chance.  The evil of a marriage would be much diminished,

if Elizabeth were also to marry.  As for herself, she might always

command a home with Lady Russell.
  
  

Lady Russell's composed mind and polite manners were put to some trial

on this point, in her intercourse in Camden Place.  The sight of Mrs Clay

in such favour, and of Anne so overlooked, was a perpetual provocation

to her there; and vexed her as much when she was away, as a person in Bath

who drinks the water, gets all the new publications, and has

a very large acquaintance, has time to be vexed.
  
  

As Mr Elliot became known to her, she grew more charitable,

or more indifferent, towards the others.  His manners were

an immediate recommendation; and on conversing with him she found

the solid so fully supporting the superficial, that she was at first,

as she told Anne, almost ready to exclaim, "Can this be Mr Elliot?"

and could not seriously picture to herself a more agreeable

or estimable man.  Everything united in him; good understanding,

correct opinions, knowledge of the world, and a warm heart.

He had strong feelings of family attachment and family honour,

without pride or weakness; he lived with the liberality of a man of fortune,

without display; he judged for himself in everything essential,

without defying public opinion in any point of worldly decorum.

He was steady, observant, moderate, candid; never run away with by spirits

or by selfishness, which fancied itself strong feeling; and yet,

with a sensibility to what was amiable and lovely, and a value

for all the felicities of domestic life, which characters of

fancied enthusiasm and violent agitation seldom really possess.

She was sure that he had not been happy in marriage.  Colonel Wallis

said it, and Lady Russell saw it; but it had been no unhappiness

to sour his mind, nor (she began pretty soon to suspect) to prevent his

thinking of a second choice.  Her satisfaction in Mr Elliot

outweighed all the plague of Mrs Clay.
  
  

It was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she

and her excellent friend could sometimes think differently;

and it did not surprise her, therefore, that Lady Russell

should see nothing suspicious or inconsistent, nothing to require

more motives than appeared, in Mr Elliot's great desire of a reconciliation.

In Lady Russell's view, it was perfectly natural that Mr Elliot,

at a mature time of life, should feel it a most desirable object,

and what would very generally recommend him among all sensible people,

to be on good terms with the head of his family; the simplest process

in the world of time upon a head naturally clear, and only erring

in the heyday of youth.  Anne presumed, however, still to smile about it,

and at last to mention "Elizabeth."  Lady Russell listened, and looked,

and made only this cautious reply:-- "Elizabeth! very well;

time will explain."
  
  

It was a reference to the future, which Anne, after a little observation,

felt she must submit to.  She could determine nothing at present.

In that house Elizabeth must be first; and she was in the habit

of such general observance as "Miss Elliot," that any particularity

of attention seemed almost impossible.  Mr Elliot, too,

it must be remembered, had not been a widower seven months.

A little delay on his side might be very excusable.  In fact,

Anne could never see the crape round his hat, without fearing that

she was the inexcusable one, in attributing to him such imaginations;

for though his marriage had not been very happy, still it had existed

so many years that she could not comprehend a very rapid recovery

from the awful impression of its being dissolved.
  
  

However it might end, he was without any question their

pleasantest acquaintance in Bath:  she saw nobody equal to him;

and it was a great indulgence now and then to talk to him about Lyme,

which he seemed to have as lively a wish to see again, and to see more of,

as herself.  They went through the particulars of their first meeting

a great many times.  He gave her to understand that he had

looked at her with some earnestness.  She knew it well;

and she remembered another person's look also.
  
  

They did not always think alike.  His value for rank and connexion

she perceived was greater than hers.  It was not merely complaisance,

it must be a liking to the cause, which made him enter warmly

into her father and sister's solicitudes on a subject which

she thought unworthy to excite them.  The Bath paper one morning

announced the arrival of the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple,

and her daughter, the Honourable Miss Carteret; and all the comfort

of No. --, Camden Place, was swept away for many days; for the Dalrymples

(in Anne's opinion, most unfortunately) were cousins of the Elliots;

and the agony was how to introduce themselves properly.
  
  

Anne had never seen her father and sister before in contact with nobility,

and she must acknowledge herself disappointed.  She had hoped

better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life,

and was reduced to form a wish which she had never foreseen;

a wish that they had more pride; for "our cousins Lady Dalrymple

and Miss Carteret;" "our cousins, the Dalrymples," sounded in her ears

all day long.
  
  

Sir Walter had once been in company with the late viscount,

but had never seen any of the rest of the family; and the difficulties

of the case arose from there having been a suspension of all intercourse

by letters of ceremony, ever since the death of that said late viscount,

when, in consequence of a dangerous illness of Sir Walter's

at the same time, there had been an unlucky omission at Kellynch.

No letter of condolence had been sent to Ireland.  The neglect

had been visited on the head of the sinner; for when poor Lady Elliot

died herself, no letter of condolence was received at Kellynch,

and, consequently, there was but too much reason to apprehend

that the Dalrymples considered the relationship as closed.

How to have this anxious business set to rights, and be admitted

as cousins again, was the question:  and it was a question which,

in a more rational manner, neither Lady Russell nor Mr Elliot

thought unimportant.  "Family connexions were always worth preserving,

good company always worth seeking; Lady Dalrymple had taken a house,

for three months, in Laura Place, and would be living in .

She had been at Bath the year before, and Lady Russell had heard her

spoken of as a charming woman.  It was very desirable that

the connexion should be renewed, if it could be done, without any

compromise of propriety on the side of the Elliots."
  
  

Sir Walter, however, would choose his own means, and at last wrote

a very fine letter of ample explanation, regret, and entreaty,

to his right honourable cousin.  Neither Lady Russell nor Mr Elliot

could admire the letter; but it did all that was wanted,

in bringing three lines of scrawl from the Dowager Viscountess.

"She was very much honoured, and should be happy in their acquaintance."

The toils of the business were over, the sweets began.  They visited

in Laura Place, they had the cards of Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple,

and the Honourable Miss Carteret, to be arranged wherever they might

be most visible:  and "Our cousins in Laura Place,"--"Our cousin,

Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret," were talked of to everybody.
  
  

Anne was ashamed.  Had Lady Dalrymple and her daughter even been

very agreeable, she would still have been ashamed of the agitation

they created, but they were nothing.  There was no superiority of manner,

accomplishment, or understanding.  Lady Dalrymple had acquired

the name of "a charming woman," because she had a smile and a civil answer

for everybody.  Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain

and so awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place

but for her birth.
  
  

Lady Russell confessed she had expected something better; but yet

"it was an acquaintance worth having;" and when Anne ventured to speak

her opinion of them to Mr Elliot, he agreed to their being nothing

in themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion,

as good company, as those who would collect good company around them,

they had their value.  Anne smiled and said,
  
  

"My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever,

well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation;

that is what I call good company."
  
  

"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company;

that is the best.  Good company requires only birth, education,

and manners, and with regard to education is not very nice.

Birth and good manners are essential; but a little learning is

by no means a dangerous thing in good company; on the contrary,

it will do very well.  My cousin Anne shakes her head.

She is not satisfied.  She is fastidious.  My dear cousin"

(sitting down by her), "you have a better right to be fastidious

than almost any other woman I know; but will it answer?

Will it make you happy?  Will it not be wiser to accept the society

of those good ladies in Laura Place, and enjoy all the advantages

of the connexion as far as possible?  You may depend upon it,

that they will move in the first set in Bath this winter,

and as rank is rank, your being known to be related to them

will have its use in fixing your family (our family let me say)

in that degree of consideration which we must all wish for."
  
  

"Yes," sighed Anne, "we shall, indeed, be known to be related to them!"

then recollecting herself, and not wishing to be answered, she added,

"I certainly do think there has been by far too much trouble taken

to procure the acquaintance.  I suppose" (smiling) "I have more pride

than any of you; but I confess it does vex me, that we should be

so solicitous to have the relationship acknowledged, which we may

be very sure is a matter of perfect indifference to them."
  
  

"ardon me, dear cousin, you are unjust in your own claims.

In London, perhaps, in your present quiet  of living,

it might be as you say:  but in Bath; Sir Walter Elliot and his family

will always be worth knowing:  always acceptable as acquaintance."
  
  

"Well," said Anne, "I certainly am proud, too proud to enjoy a welcome

which depends so entirely upon place."
  
  

"I love your indignation," said he; "it is very natural.

But here you are in Bath, and the object is to be established here

with all the credit and dignity which ought to belong to Sir Walter Elliot.

You talk of being proud; I am called proud, I know, and I shall not wish

to believe myself otherwise; for our pride, if investigated,

would have the same object, I have no doubt, though the kind may seem

a little different.  In one point, I am sure, my dear cousin,"

(he continued, speaking lower, though there was no one else in the room)

"in one point, I am sure, we must feel alike.  We must feel that

every addition to your father's society, among his equals or superiors,

may be of use in diverting his thoughts from those who are beneath him."
  
  

He looked, as he spoke, to the seat which Mrs Clay had been

lately occupying:  a sufficient explanation of what he particularly meant;

and though Anne could not believe in their having the same sort of pride,

she was pleased with him for not liking Mrs Clay; and her conscience

admitted that his wishing to promote her father's getting

great acquaintance was more than excusable in the view of defeating her.

Chapter 15

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sir Walter had taken a very good house in Camden Place,

a lofty dignified situation, such as becomes a man of consequence;

and both he and Elizabeth were settled there, much to their satisfaction.
  
  

Anne entered it with a sinking heart, anticipating an imprisonment

of many months, and anxiously saying to herself, "Oh! when shall I

leave you again?"  A degree of unexpected cordiality, however,

in the welcome she received, did her good.  Her father and sister

were glad to see her, for the sake of shewing her the house and furniture,

and met her with kindness.  Her making a fourth, when they

sat down to dinner, was noticed as an advantage.
  
  

Mrs Clay was very pleasant, and very smiling, but her courtesies and smiles

were more a matter of course.  Anne had always felt that she would

pretend what was proper on her arrival, but the complaisance of the others

was unlooked for.  They were evidently in excellent spirits,

and she was soon to listen to the causes.  They had no inclination

to listen to her.  After laying out for some compliments of being

deeply regretted in their old neighbourhood, which Anne could not pay,

they had only a few faint enquiries to make, before the talk must be

all their own.  Uppercross excited no interest, Kellynch very little:

it was all Bath.
  
  

They had the pleasure of assuring her that Bath more than answered

their expectations in every respect.  Their house was undoubtedly

the best in Camden Place; their drawing-rooms had many decided advantages

over all the others which they had either seen or heard of,

and the superiority was not less in the  of the fitting-up,

or the taste of the furniture.  Their acquaintance was

exceedingly sought after.  Everybody was wanting to visit them.

They had drawn back from many introductions, and still were

perpetually having cards left by people of whom they knew nothing.
  
  

Here were funds of enjoyment.  Could Anne wonder that her father

and sister were happy?  She might not wonder, but she must sigh

that her father should feel no degradation in his change, should see

nothing to regret in the duties and dignity of the resident landholder,

should find so much to be vain of in the littlenesses of a town;

and she must sigh, and smile, and wonder too, as Elizabeth threw open

the folding-doors and walked with exultation from one drawing-room

to the other, boasting of their space; at the possibility of that woman,

who had been mistress of Kellynch Hall, finding extent to be proud of

between two walls, perhaps thirty feet asunder.
  
  

But this was not all which they had to make them happy.

They had Mr Elliot too.  Anne had a great deal to hear of Mr Elliot.

He was not only pardoned, they were delighted with him.

He had been in Bath about a fortnight; (he had passed through Bath

in November, in his way to London, when the intelligence of

Sir Walter's being settled there had of course reached him,

though only twenty-four hours in the place, but he had not been able

to avail himself of it;) but he had now been a fortnight in Bath,

and his first object on arriving, had been to leave his card

in Camden Place, following it up by such assiduous endeavours to meet,

and when they did meet, by such great openness of conduct,

such readiness to apologize for the past, such solicitude to be received

as a relation again, that their former good understanding

was completely re-established.
  
  

They had not a fault to find in him.  He had explained away

all the appearance of neglect on his own side.  It had originated

in misapprehension entirely.  He had never had an idea of

throwing himself off; he had feared that he was thrown off,

but knew not why, and delicacy had kept him silent.  Upon the hint

of having spoken disrespectfully or carelessly of the family

and the family honours, he was quite indignant.  He, who had ever boasted

of being an Elliot, and whose feelings, as to connection,

were only too strict to suit the unfeudal tone of the present day.

He was astonished, indeed, but his character and general conduct

must refute it.  He could refer Sir Walter to all who knew him;

and certainly, the pains he had been taking on this, the first opportunity

of reconciliation, to be restored to the footing of a relation

and heir-presumptive, was a strong proof of his opinions on the subject.
  
  

The circumstances of his marriage, too, were found to admit of

much extenuation.  This was an article not to be entered on by himself;

but a very intimate friend of his, a Colonel Wallis, a highly

respectable man, perfectly the gentleman, (and not an ill-looking man,

Sir Walter added), who was living in very good  in Marlborough

Buildings, and had, at his own particular request, been admitted

to their acquaintance through Mr Elliot, had mentioned one or two things

relative to the marriage, which made a material difference

in the discredit of it.
  
  

Colonel Wallis had known Mr Elliot long, had been well acquainted

also with his wife, had perfectly understood the whole story.

She was certainly not a woman of family, but well educated,

accomplished, rich, and excessively in love with his friend.

There had been the charm.  She had sought him.  Without that attraction,

not all her money would have tempted Elliot, and Sir Walter was,

moreover, assured of her having been a very fine woman.

Here was a great deal to soften the business.  A very fine woman

with a large fortune, in love with him!  Sir Walter seemed to admit it

as complete apology; and though Elizabeth could not see the circumstance

in quite so favourable a light, she allowed it be a great extenuation.
  
  

Mr Elliot had called repeatedly, had dined with them once,

evidently delighted by the distinction of being asked, for they

gave no dinners in general; delighted, in short, by every proof

of cousinly notice, and placing his whole happiness in being

on intimate terms in Camden Place.
  
  

Anne listened, but without quite understanding it.  Allowances,

large allowances, she knew, must be made for the ideas of those who spoke.

She heard it all under embellishment.  All that sounded extravagant

or irrational in the progress of the reconciliation might have no origin

but in the language of the relators.  Still, however, she had

the sensation of there being something more than immediately appeared,

in Mr Elliot's wishing, after an interval of so many years,

to be well received by them.  In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain

by being on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a state of variance.

In all probability he was already the richer of the two,

and the Kellynch estate would as surely be his hereafter as the title.

A sensible man, and he had looked like a very sensible man,

why should it be an object to him?  She could only offer one solution;

it was, perhaps, for Elizabeth's sake.  There might really have been

a liking formerly, though convenience and accident had drawn him

a different way; and now that he could afford to please himself,

he might mean to pay his addresses to her.  Elizabeth was certainly

very handsome, with well-bred, elegant manners, and her character

might never have been penetrated by Mr Elliot, knowing her but in public,

and when very young himself.  How her temper and understanding

might bear the investigation of his present keener time of life

was another concern and rather a fearful one.  Most earnestly did she wish

that he might not be too nice, or too observant if Elizabeth

were his object; and that Elizabeth was disposed to believe herself so,

and that her friend Mrs Clay was encouraging the idea, seemed apparent

by a glance or two between them, while Mr Elliot's frequent visits

were talked of.
  
  

Anne mentioned the glimpses she had had of him at Lyme, but without

being much attended to.  "Oh! yes, perhaps, it had been Mr Elliot.

They did not know.  It might be him, perhaps."  They could not listen

to her description of him.  They were describing him themselves;

Sir Walter especially.  He did justice to his very gentlemanlike

appearance, his air of elegance and fashion, his good shaped face,

his sensible eye; but, at the same time, "must lament his being

very much under-hung, a defect which time seemed to have increased;

nor could he pretend to say that ten years had not altered

almost every feature for the worse.  Mr Elliot appeared to think

that he (Sir Walter) was looking exactly as he had done when

they last parted;" but Sir Walter had "not been able to return

the compliment entirely, which had embarrassed him.  He did not mean

to complain, however.  Mr Elliot was better to look at than most men,

and he had no objection to being seen with him anywhere."
  
  

Mr Elliot, and his friends in Marlborough Buildings, were talked of

the whole evening.  "Colonel Wallis had been so impatient to be

introduced to them! and Mr Elliot so anxious that he should!"

and there was a Mrs Wallis, at present known only to them by description,

as she was in daily expectation of her confinement; but Mr Elliot

spoke of her as "a most charming woman, quite worthy of being known

in Camden Place," and as soon as she recovered they were to be acquainted.

Sir Walter thought much of Mrs Wallis; she was said to be

an excessively pretty woman, beautiful.  "He longed to see her.

He hoped she might make some amends for the many very plain faces

he was continually passing in the streets.  The worst of Bath was

the number of its plain women.  He did not mean to say that there were

no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion.

He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face

would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once,

as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted

eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being

a tolerable face among them.  It had been a frosty morning,

to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a thousand

could stand the test of.  But still, there certainly were

a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men!

they were infinitely worse.  Such scarecrows as the streets were full of!

It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything

tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced.

He had never walked anywhere arm-in-arm with Colonel Wallis

(who was a fine military figure, though sandy-haired) without observing

that every woman's eye was upon him; every woman's eye was sure to be

upon Colonel Wallis."  Modest Sir Walter!  He was not allowed

to escape, however.  His daughter and Mrs Clay united in hinting

that Colonel Wallis's companion might have as good a figure

as Colonel Wallis, and certainly was not sandy-haired.
  
  

"How is Mary looking?" said Sir Walter, in the height of his good humour.

"The last time I saw her she had a red nose, but I hope that may not

happen every day."
  
  

"Oh! no, that must have been quite accidental.  In general she has been

in very good health and very good looks since Michaelmas."
  
  

"If I thought it would not tempt her to go out in sharp winds,

and grow coarse, I would send her a new hat and pelisse."
  
  

Anne was considering whether she should venture to suggest that a gown,

or a cap, would not be liable to any such misuse, when a knock at the door

suspended everything.  "A knock at the door! and so late!

It was ten o'clock.  Could it be Mr Elliot?  They knew he was to dine

in Lansdown Crescent.  It was possible that he might stop in his way home

to ask them how they did.  They could think of no one else.

Mrs Clay decidedly thought it Mr Elliot's knock."  Mrs Clay was right.

With all the state which a butler and foot-boy could give,

Mr Elliot was ushered into the room.
  
  

It was the same, the very same man, with no difference but of dress.

Anne drew a little back, while the others received his compliments,

and her sister his apologies for calling at so unusual an hour,

but "he could not be so near without wishing to know that neither she

nor her friend had taken cold the day before," &c. &c; which was

all as politely done, and as politely taken, as possible, but her part

must follow then.  Sir Walter talked of his youngest daughter;

"Mr Elliot must give him leave to present him to his youngest daughter"

(there was no occasion for remembering Mary); and Anne, smiling and

blushing, very becomingly shewed to Mr Elliot the pretty features

which he had by no means forgotten, and instantly saw, with amusement

at his little start of surprise, that he had not been at all aware

of who she was.  He looked completely astonished, but not more astonished

than pleased; his eyes brightened! and with the most perfect alacrity

he welcomed the relationship, alluded to the past, and entreated

to be received as an acquaintance already.  He was quite as good-looking

as he had appeared at Lyme, his countenance improved by speaking,

and his manners were so exactly what they ought to be, so polished,

so easy, so particularly agreeable, that she could compare them

in excellence to only one person's manners.  They were not the same,

but they were, perhaps, equally good.
  
  

He sat down with them, and improved their conversation very much.

There could be no doubt of his being a sensible man.  Ten minutes

were enough to certify that.  His tone, his expressions,

his choice of subject, his knowing where to stop; it was all

the operation of a sensible, discerning mind.  As soon as he could,

he began to talk to her of Lyme, wanting to compare opinions

respecting the place, but especially wanting to speak of the circumstance

of their happening to be guests in the same inn at the same time;

to give his own route, understand something of hers, and regret that

he should have lost such an opportunity of paying his respects to her.

She gave him a short account of her party and business at Lyme.

His regret increased as he listened.  He had spent his whole

solitary evening in the room adjoining theirs; had heard voices,

mirth continually; thought they must be a most delightful set of people,

longed to be with them, but certainly without the smallest suspicion

of his possessing the shadow of a right to introduce himself.

If he had but asked who the party were!  The name of Musgrove would

have told him enough.  "Well, it would serve to cure him of

an absurd practice of never asking a question at an inn,

which he had adopted, when quite a young man, on the principal

of its being very ungenteel to be curious.
  
  

"The notions of a young man of one or two and twenty," said he,

"as to what is necessary in manners to make him quite the thing,

are more absurd, I believe, than those of any other set of beings

in the world.  The folly of the means they often employ

is only to be equalled by the folly of what they have in view."
  
  

But he must not be addressing his reflections to Anne alone:

he knew it; he was soon diffused again among the others,

and it was only at intervals that he could return to Lyme.
  
  

His enquiries, however, produced at length an account of the scene

she had been engaged in there, soon after his leaving the place.

Having alluded to "an accident,"  he must hear the whole.

When he questioned, Sir Walter and Elizabeth began to question also,

but the difference in their manner of doing it could not be unfelt.

She could only compare Mr Elliot to Lady Russell, in the wish

of really comprehending what had passed, and in the degree of concern

for what she must have suffered in witnessing it.
  
  

He staid an hour with them.  The elegant little clock on the mantel-

piece had struck "eleven with its silver sounds," and the watchman

was beginning to be heard at a distance telling the same tale,

before Mr Elliot or any of them seemed to feel that he had been there long.
  
  

Anne could not have supposed it possible that her first evening in

Camden Place could have passed so well!

Chapter 14

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though Charles and Mary had remained at Lyme much longer after

Mr and Mrs Musgrove's going than Anne conceived they could have been

at all wanted, they were yet the first of the family to be at home again;

and as soon as possible after their return to Uppercross

they drove over to the Lodge.  They had left Louisa beginning to sit up;

but her head, though clear, was exceedingly weak, and her nerves

susceptible to the highest extreme of tenderness; and though

she might be pronounced to be altogether doing very well,

it was still impossible to say when she might be able to bear

the removal home; and her father and mother, who must return

in time to receive their younger children for the Christmas holidays,

had hardly a hope of being allowed to bring her with them.
  
  

They had been all in lodgings together.  Mrs Musgrove had

got Mrs Harville's children away as much as she could, every possible

supply from Uppercross had been furnished, to lighten the inconvenience

to the Harvilles, while the Harvilles had been wanting them

to come to dinner every day; and in short, it seemed to have been

only a struggle on each side as to which should be most disinterested

and hospitable.
  
  

Mary had had her evils; but upon the whole, as was evident

by her staying so long, she had found more to enjoy than to suffer.

Charles Hayter had been at Lyme oftener than suited her; and when

they dined with the Harvilles there had been only a maid-servant to wait,

and at first Mrs Harville had always given Mrs Musgrove precedence;

but then, she had received so very handsome an apology from her

on finding out whose daughter she was, and there had been so much

going on every day, there had been so many walks between their lodgings

and the Harvilles, and she had got books from the library,

and changed them so often, that the balance had certainly been

much in favour of Lyme.  She had been taken to Charmouth too,

and she had bathed, and she had gone to church, and there were a great many

more people to look at in the church at Lyme than at Uppercross;

and all this, joined to the sense of being so very useful,

had made really an agreeable fortnight.
  
  

Anne enquired after Captain Benwick, Mary's face was clouded directly.

Charles laughed.
  
  

"Oh! Captain Benwick is very well, I believe, but he is

a very odd young man.  I do not know what he would be at.

We asked him to come home with us for a day or two:  Charles undertook

to give him some shooting, and he seemed quite delighted, and, for my part,

I thought it was all settled; when behold! on Tuesday night,

he made a very awkward sort of excuse; `he never shot' and he had

`been quite misunderstood,' and he had promised this and he had

promised that, and the end of it was, I found, that he did not mean to come.

I suppose he was  of finding it dull; but upon my word

I should have thought we were lively enough at the Cottage

for such a heart-broken man as Captain Benwick."
  
  

Charles laughed again and said, "Now Mary, you know very well

how it really was.  It was all your doing," (turning to Anne.)

"He fancied that if he went with us, he should find you close by:

he fancied everybody to be living in Uppercross; and when he discovered

that Lady Russell lived three miles off, his heart failed him,

and he had not courage to come.  That is the fact, upon my honour,

Mary knows it is."
  
  

But Mary did not give into it very graciously, whether from

not considering Captain Benwick entitled by birth and situation

to be in love with an Elliot, or from not wanting to believe

Anne a greater attraction to Uppercross than herself, must be

left to be guessed.  Anne's good-will, however, was not to be lessened

by what she heard.  She boldly acknowledged herself flattered,

and continued her enquiries.
  
  

"Oh! he talks of you," cried Charles, "in such terms--"

Mary interrupted him. "I declare, Charles, I never heard him

mention Anne twice all the time I was there.  I declare, Anne,

he never talks of you at all."
  
  

"No," admitted Charles, "I do not know that he ever does, in a general

way; but however, it is a very clear thing that he admires you exceedingly.

His head is full of some books that he is reading upon your recommendation,

and he wants to talk to you about them; he has found out something or other

in one of them which he thinks-- oh! I cannot pretend to remember it,

but it was something very fine--I overheard him telling Henrietta

all about it; and then `Miss Elliot' was spoken of in the highest terms!

Now Mary, I declare it was so, I heard it myself, and you were

in the other room.  `Elegance, sweetness, beauty.' Oh! there was no end

of Miss Elliot's charms."
  
  

"And I am sure," cried Mary, warmly, "it was a very little to his credit,

if he did.  Miss Harville only died last June.  Such a heart

is very little worth having; is it, Lady Russell?  I am sure

you will agree with me."
  
  

"I must see Captain Benwick before I decide," said Lady Russell, smiling.
  
  

"And that you are very likely to do very soon, I can tell you, ma'am,"

said Charles.  "Though he had not nerves for coming away with us,

and setting off again afterwards to pay a formal visit here,

he will make his way over to Kellynch one day by himself,

you may depend on it.  I told him the distance and the road,

and I told him of the church's being so very well worth seeing;

for as he has a taste for those sort of things, I thought that would

be a good excuse, and he listened with all his understanding and soul;

and I am sure from his manner that you will have him calling here soon.

So, I give you notice, Lady Russell."
  
  

"Any acquaintance of Anne's will always be welcome to me,"

was Lady Russell's kind answer.
  
  

"Oh! as to being Anne's acquaintance," said Mary, "I think he is rather

my acquaintance, for I have been seeing him every day this last fortnight."
  
  

"Well, as your joint acquaintance, then, I shall be very happy

to see Captain Benwick."
  
  

"You will not find anything very agreeable in him, I assure you, ma'am.

He is one of the dullest young men that ever lived.  He has walked with me,

sometimes, from one end of the sands to the other, without saying a word.

He is not at all a well-bred young man.  I am sure you will not like him."
  
  

"There we differ, Mary," said Anne.  "I think Lady Russell would like him.

I think she would be so much pleased with his mind, that she would

very soon see no deficiency in his manner."
  
  

"So do I, Anne," said Charles.  "I am sure Lady Russell would like him.

He is just Lady Russell's sort.  Give him a book, and he will

read all day long."
  
  

"Yes, that he will!" exclaimed Mary, tauntingly.  "He will sit poring

over his book, and not know when a person speaks to him, or when one

drop's one's scissors, or anything that happens.  Do you think

Lady Russell would like that?"
  
  

Lady Russell could not help laughing.  "Upon my word," said she,

"I should not have supposed that my opinion of any one could have

admitted of such difference of conjecture, steady and matter of fact

as I may call myself.  I have really a curiosity to see the person

who can give occasion to such directly opposite notions.

I wish he may be induced to call here.  And when he does, Mary,

you may depend upon hearing my opinion; but I am determined

not to judge him beforehand."
  
  

"You will not like him, I will answer for it."
  
  

Lady Russell began talking of something else.  Mary spoke with animation

of their meeting with, or rather missing, Mr Elliot so extraordinarily.
  
  

"He is a man," said Lady Russell, "whom I have no wish to see.

His declining to be on cordial terms with the head of his family,

has left a very strong impression in his disfavour with me."
  
  

This decision checked Mary's eagerness, and stopped her short

in the midst of the Elliot countenance.
  
  

With regard to Captain Wentworth, though Anne hazarded no enquiries,

there was voluntary communication sufficient.  His spirits had been

greatly recovering lately as might be expected.  As Louisa improved,

he had improved, and he was now quite a different creature

from what he had been the first week.  He had not seen Louisa;

and was so extremely fearful of any ill consequence to her

from an interview, that he did not press for it at all; and,

on the contrary, seemed to have a plan of going away for a week

or ten days, till her head was stronger.  He had talked of going

down to Plymouth for a week, and wanted to persuade Captain Benwick

to go with him; but, as Charles maintained to the last, Captain Benwick

seemed much more disposed to ride over to Kellynch.
  
  

There can be no doubt that Lady Russell and Anne were both

occasionally thinking of Captain Benwick, from this time.

Lady Russell could not hear the door-bell without feeling that it might

be his herald; nor could Anne return from any stroll of solitary indulgence

in her father's grounds, or any visit of charity in the village,

without wondering whether she might see him or hear of him.

Captain Benwick came not, however.  He was either less disposed for it

than Charles had imagined, or he was too shy; and after giving him

a week's indulgence, Lady Russell determined him to be unworthy

of the interest which he had been beginning to excite.
  
  

The Musgroves came back to receive their happy boys and girls from school,

bringing with them Mrs Harville's little children, to improve the noise

of Uppercross, and lessen that of Lyme.  Henrietta remained with Louisa;

but all the rest of the family were again in their usual quarters.
  
  

Lady Russell and Anne paid their compliments to them once,

when Anne could not but feel that Uppercross was already quite alive again.

Though neither Henrietta, nor Louisa, nor Charles Hayter,

nor Captain Wentworth were there, the room presented as strong a contrast

as could be wished to the last state she had seen it in.
  
  

Immediately surrounding Mrs Musgrove were the little Harvilles,

whom she was sedulously guarding from the tyranny of the two children

from the Cottage, expressly arrived to amuse them.  On one side

was a table occupied by some chattering girls, cutting up silk

and gold paper; and on the other were tressels and trays,

bending under the weight of brawn and cold pies, where riotous boys

were holding high revel; the whole completed by a roaring Christmas fire,

which seemed determined to be heard, in spite of all the noise

of the others.  Charles and Mary also came in, of course,

during their visit, and Mr Musgrove made a point of paying his respects

to Lady Russell, and sat down close to her for ten minutes,

talking with a very raised voice, but from the clamour of the children

on his knees, generally in vain.  It was a fine family-piece.
  
  

Anne, judging from her own temperament, would have deemed

such a domestic hurricane a bad restorative of the nerves,

which Louisa's illness must have so greatly shaken.  But Mrs Musgrove,

who got Anne near her on purpose to thank her most cordially,

again and again, for all her attentions to them, concluded

a short recapitulation of what she had suffered herself by observing,

with a happy glance round the room, that after all she had gone through,

nothing was so likely to do her good as a little quiet cheerfulness

at home.
  
  

Louisa was now recovering apace.  Her mother could even think of her

being able to join their party at home, before her brothers and sisters

went to school again.  The Harvilles had promised to come with her

and stay at Uppercross, whenever she returned.  Captain Wentworth was gone,

for the present, to see his brother in Shropshire.
  
  

"I hope I shall remember, in future," said Lady Russell, as soon as

they were reseated in the carriage, "not to call at Uppercross

in the Christmas holidays."
  
  

Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters;

and sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort

rather than their quantity.  When Lady Russell not long afterwards,

was entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through

the long course of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place,

amidst the dash of other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays,

the bawling of newspapermen, muffin-men and milkmen, and the ceaseless

clink of pattens, she made no complaint.  No, these were noises

which belonged to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose

under their influence; and like Mrs Musgrove, she was feeling,

though not saying, that after being long in the country, nothing could be

so good for her as a little quiet cheerfulness.
  
  

Anne did not share these feelings.  She persisted in a very determined,

though very silent disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view

of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish

of seeing them better; felt their progress through the streets to be,

however disagreeable, yet too rapid; for who would be glad to see her

when she arrived?  And looked back, with fond regret, to the bustles

of Uppercross and the seclusion of Kellynch.
  
  

Elizabeth's last letter had communicated a piece of news of some interest.

Mr Elliot was in Bath.  He had called in Camden Place; had called

a second time, a third; had been pointedly attentive.  If Elizabeth

and her father did not deceive themselves, had been taking much pains

to seek the acquaintance, and proclaim the value of the connection,

as he had formerly taken pains to shew neglect.  This was very wonderful

if it were true; and Lady Russell was in a state of very agreeable

curiosity and perplexity about Mr Elliot, already recanting the sentiment

she had so lately expressed to Mary, of his being "a man whom she had

no wish to see."  She had a great wish to see him.  If he really sought

to reconcile himself like a dutiful branch, he must be forgiven

for having dismembered himself from the paternal tree.
  
  

Anne was not animated to an equal pitch by the circumstance,

but she felt that she would rather see Mr Elliot again than not,

which was more than she could say for many other persons in Bath.
  
  

She was put down in Camden Place; and Lady Russell then drove

to her own lodgings, in Rivers Street.

Chapter 13

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The remainder of Anne's time at Uppercross, comprehending only two days,

was spent entirely at the Mansion House; and she had the satisfaction

of knowing herself extremely useful there, both as an immediate companion,

and as assisting in all those arrangements for the future, which,

in Mr and Mrs Musgrove's distressed state of spirits, would have

been difficulties.
  
  

They had an early account from Lyme the next morning.  Louisa was

much the same.  No symptoms worse than before had appeared.

Charles came a few hours afterwards, to bring a later and

more particular account.  He was tolerably cheerful.  A speedy cure

must not be hoped, but everything was going on as well

as the nature of the case admitted.  In speaking of the Harvilles,

he seemed unable to satisfy his own sense of their kindness,

especially of Mrs Harville's exertions as a nurse.  "She really left

nothing for Mary to do.  He and Mary had been persuaded to go early

to their inn last night.  Mary had been hysterical again this morning.

When he came away, she was going to walk out with Captain Benwick,

which, he hoped, would do her good.  He almost wished she had been

prevailed on to come home the day before; but the truth was,

that Mrs Harville left nothing for anybody to do."
  
  

Charles was to return to Lyme the same afternoon, and his father

had at first half a mind to go with him, but the ladies could not consent.

It would be going only to multiply trouble to the others,

and increase his own distress; and a much better scheme followed

and was acted upon.  A chaise was sent for from Crewkherne,

and Charles conveyed back a far more useful person in the old nursery-maid

of the family, one who having brought up all the children,

and seen the very last, the lingering and long-petted Master Harry,

sent to school after his brothers, was now living in her deserted nursery

to mend stockings and dress all the blains and bruises she could

get near her, and who, consequently, was only too happy in being

allowed to go and help nurse dear Miss Louisa.  Vague wishes of

getting Sarah thither, had occurred before to Mrs Musgrove and Henrietta;

but without Anne, it would hardly have been resolved on,

and found practicable so soon.
  
  

They were indebted, the next day, to Charles Hayter, for all

the minute knowledge of Louisa, which it was so essential to obtain

every twenty-four hours.  He made it his business to go to Lyme,

and his account was still encouraging.  The intervals of sense

and consciousness were believed to be stronger.  Every report agreed

in Captain Wentworth's appearing fixed in Lyme.
  
  

Anne was to leave them on the morrow, an event which they all dreaded.

"What should they do without her?  They were wretched comforters

for one another."  And so much was said in this way, that Anne thought

she could not do better than impart among them the general inclination

to which she was privy, and persuaded them all to go to Lyme at once.

She had little difficulty; it was soon determined that they would go;

go to-morrow, fix themselves at the inn, or get into lodgings,

as it suited, and there remain till dear Louisa could be moved.

They must be taking off some trouble from the good people she was with;

they might at least relieve Mrs Harville from the care of her own children;

and in short, they were so happy in the decision, that Anne was delighted

with what she had done, and felt that she could not spend her

last morning at Uppercross better than in assisting their preparations,

and sending them off at an early hour, though her being left

to the solitary range of the house was the consequence.
  
  

She was the last, excepting the little boys at the cottage,

she was the very last, the only remaining one of all that had filled

and animated both houses, of all that had given Uppercross

its cheerful character.  A few days had made a change indeed!
  
  

If Louisa recovered, it would all be well again.  More than

former happiness would be restored.  There could not be a doubt,

to her mind there was none, of what would follow her recovery.

A few months hence, and the room now so deserted, occupied but by

her silent, pensive self, might be filled again with all that was happy

and gay, all that was glowing and bright in prosperous love,

all that was most unlike Anne Elliot!
  
  

An hour's complete leisure for such reflections as these,

on a dark November day, a small thick rain almost blotting out

the very few objects ever to be discerned from the windows, was enough

to make the sound of Lady Russell's carriage exceedingly welcome;

and yet, though desirous to be gone, she could not quit the Mansion House,

or look an adieu to the Cottage, with its black, dripping and

comfortless veranda, or even notice through the misty glasses

the last humble tenements of the village, without a saddened heart.

Scenes had passed in Uppercross which made it precious.

It stood the record of many sensations of pain, once severe,

but now softened; and of some instances of relenting feeling,

some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could

never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear.

She left it all behind her, all but the recollection that

such things had been.
  
  

Anne had never entered Kellynch since her quitting Lady Russell's house

in September.  It had not been necessary, and the few occasions of

its being possible for her to go to the Hall she had contrived to evade

and escape from.  Her first return was to resume her place in the modern

and elegant apartments of the Lodge, and to gladden the eyes

of its mistress.
  
  

There was some anxiety mixed with Lady Russell's joy in meeting her.

She knew who had been frequenting Uppercross.  But happily,

either Anne was improved in plumpness and looks, or Lady Russell

fancied her so; and Anne, in receiving her compliments on the occasion,

had the amusement of connecting them with the silent admiration

of her cousin, and of hoping that she was to be blessed with

a second spring of youth and beauty.
  
  

When they came to converse, she was soon sensible of some mental change.

The subjects of which her heart had been full on leaving Kellynch,

and which she had felt slighted, and been compelled to smother

among the Musgroves, were now become but of secondary interest.

She had lately lost sight even of her father and sister and Bath.

Their concerns had been sunk under those of Uppercross;

and when Lady Russell reverted to their former hopes and fears,

and spoke her satisfaction in the house in Camden Place,

which had been taken, and her regret that Mrs Clay should still

be with them, Anne would have been ashamed to have it known

how much more she was thinking of Lyme and Louisa Musgrove,

and all her acquaintance there; how much more interesting to her

was the home and the friendship of the Harvilles and Captain Benwick,

than her own father's house in Camden Place, or her own sister's intimacy

with Mrs Clay.  She was actually forced to exert herself

to meet Lady Russell with anything like the appearance of equal solicitude,

on topics which had by nature the first claim on her.
  
  

There was a little awkwardness at first in their discourse

on another subject.  They must speak of the accident at Lyme.

Lady Russell had not been arrived five minutes the day before,

when a full account of the whole had burst on her; but still it must

be talked of, she must make enquiries, she must regret the imprudence,

lament the result, and Captain Wentworth's name must be mentioned by both.

Anne was conscious of not doing it so well as Lady Russell.

She could not speak the name, and look straight forward to

Lady Russell's eye, till she had adopted the expedient of telling her

briefly what she thought of the attachment between him and Louisa.

When this was told, his name distressed her no longer.
  
  

Lady Russell had only to listen composedly, and wish them happy,

but internally her heart revelled in angry pleasure, in pleased contempt,

that the man who at twenty-three had seemed to understand somewhat

of the value of an Anne Elliot, should, eight years afterwards,

be charmed by a Louisa Musgrove.
  
  

The first three or four days passed most quietly, with no circumstance

to mark them excepting the receipt of a note or two from Lyme,

which found their way to Anne, she could not tell how, and brought

a rather improving account of Louisa.  At the end of that period,

Lady Russell's politeness could repose no longer, and the fainter

self-threatenings of the past became in a decided tone,

"I must call on Mrs Croft; I really must call upon her soon.

Anne, have you courage to go with me, and pay a visit in that house?

It will be some trial to us both."
  
  

Anne did not shrink from it; on the contrary, she truly felt as she said,

in observing--
  
  

"I think you are very likely to suffer the most of the two;

your feelings are less reconciled to the change than mine.

By remaining in the neighbourhood, I am become inured to it."
  
  

She could have said more on the subject; for she had in fact

so high an opinion of the Crofts, and considered her father

so very fortunate in his tenants, felt the parish to be so sure

of a good example, and the poor of the best attention and relief,

that however sorry and ashamed for the necessity of the removal,

she could not but in conscience feel that they were gone

who deserved not to stay, and that Kellynch Hall had passed

into better hands than its owners'.  These convictions must unquestionably

have their own pain, and severe was its kind; but they precluded

that pain which Lady Russell would suffer in entering the house again,

and returning through the well-known apartments.
  
  

In such moments Anne had no power of saying to herself,

"These rooms ought to belong only to us.  Oh, how fallen

in their destination!  How unworthily occupied!  An ancient family

to be so driven away!  Strangers filling their place!"

No, except when she thought of her mother, and remembered where

she had been used to sit and preside, she had no sigh of that description

to heave.
  
  

Mrs Croft always met her with a kindness which gave her the pleasure

of fancying herself a favourite, and on the present occasion,

receiving her in that house, there was particular attention.
  
  

The sad accident at Lyme was soon the prevailing topic,

and on comparing their latest accounts of the invalid, it appeared

that each lady dated her intelligence from the same hour of yestermorn;

that Captain Wentworth had been in Kellynch yesterday (the first time

since the accident), had brought Anne the last note, which she had

not been able to trace the exact steps of; had staid a few hours

and then returned again to Lyme, and without any present intention

of quitting it any more.  He had enquired after her, she found,

particularly; had expressed his hope of Miss Elliot's not being

the worse for her exertions, and had spoken of those exertions as great.

This was handsome, and gave her more pleasure than almost anything else

could have done.
  
  

As to the sad catastrophe itself, it could be canvassed only in one  

by a couple of steady, sensible women, whose judgements had to work

on ascertained events; and it was perfectly decided that it had been

the consequence of much thoughtlessness and much imprudence;

that its effects were most alarming, and that it was frightful to think,

how long Miss Musgrove's recovery might yet be doubtful, and how liable

she would still remain to suffer from the concussion hereafter!

The Admiral wound it up summarily by exclaiming--
  
  

"Ay, a very bad business indeed.  A new sort of way this,

for a young fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress's head,

is not it, Miss Elliot?  This is breaking a head and giving a plaster,

truly!"
  
  

Admiral Croft's manners were not quite of the tone to suit Lady Russell,

but they delighted Anne.  His goodness of heart and simplicity

of character were irresistible.
  
  

"Now, this must be very bad for you," said he, suddenly rousing from

a little reverie, "to be coming and finding us here.  I had not

recollected it before, I declare, but it must be very bad.

But now, do not stand upon ceremony.  Get up and go over all the rooms

in the house if you like it."
  
  

"Another time, Sir, I thank you, not now."
  
  

"Well, whenever it suits you.  You can slip in from the shrubbery

at any time; and there you will find we keep our umbrellas hanging up

by that door.  A good place is not it?  But," (checking himself),

"you will not think it a good place, for yours were always kept

in the butler's room.  Ay, so it always is, I believe.

One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best.

And so you must judge for yourself, whether it would be better for you

to go about the house or not."
  
  

Anne, finding she might decline it, did so, very gratefully.
  
  

"We have made very few changes either," continued the Admiral,

after thinking a moment.  "Very few.  We told you about the laundry-door,

at Uppercross.  That has been a very great improvement.

The wonder was, how any family upon earth could bear with the inconvenience

of its opening as it did, so long!  You will tell Sir Walter

what we have done, and that Mr Shepherd thinks it the greatest improvement

the house ever had.  Indeed, I must do ourselves the justice to say,

that the few alterations we have made have been all very much

for the better.  My wife should have the credit of them, however.

I have done very little besides sending away some of the large

looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father's.

A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure:

but I should think, Miss Elliot," (looking with serious reflection),

"I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life.

Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away

from one's self.  So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon

shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my

little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing

that I never go near."
  
  

Anne, amused in spite of herself, was rather distressed for an answer,

and the Admiral, fearing he might not have been civil enough,

took up the subject again, to say--
  
  

"The next time you write to your good father, Miss Elliot,

pray give him my compliments and Mrs Croft's, and say that we are

settled here quite to our liking, and have no fault at all to find

with the place.  The breakfast-room chimney smokes a little,

I grant you, but it is only when the wind is due north and blows hard,

which may not happen three times a winter.  And take it altogether,

now that we have been into most of the houses hereabouts and can judge,

there is not one that we like better than this.  Pray say so,

with my compliments.  He will be glad to hear it."
  
  

Lady Russell and Mrs Croft were very well pleased with each other:

but the acquaintance which this visit began was fated not to proceed

far at present; for when it was returned, the Crofts announced

themselves to be going away for a few weeks, to visit their connexions

in the north of the county, and probably might not be at home again

before Lady Russell would be removing to Bath.
  
  

So ended all danger to Anne of meeting Captain Wentworth at Kellynch Hall,

or of seeing him in company with her friend.  Everything was safe enough,

and she smiled over the many anxious feelings she had wasted

on the subject.

"Anne, Anne," cried Charles, "What is to be done next?

What, in heaven's name, is to be done next?"
  
  

Captain Wentworth's eyes were also turned towards her.
  
  

"Had not she better be carried to the inn?  Yes, I am sure:

carry her gently to the inn."
  
  

"Yes, yes, to the inn," repeated Captain Wentworth, comparatively

collected, and eager to be doing something.  "I will carry her myself.

Musgrove, take care of the others."
  
  

By this time the report of the accident had spread among the workmen

and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them,

to be useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of

a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine

as the first report.  To some of the best-looking of these good people

Henrietta was consigned, for, though partially revived,

she was quite helpless; and in this manner, Anne walking by her side,

and Charles attending to his wife, they set forward, treading back

with feelings unutterable, the ground, which so lately, so very lately,

and so light of heart, they had passed along.
  
  

They were not off the Cobb, before the Harvilles met them.

Captain Benwick had been seen flying by their house, with a countenance

which showed something to be wrong; and they had set off immediately,

informed and directed as they passed, towards the spot.

Shocked as Captain Harville was, he brought senses and nerves

that could be instantly useful; and a look between him and his wife

decided what was to be done.  She must be taken to their house;

all must go to their house; and await the surgeon's arrival there.

They would not listen to scruples:  he was obeyed; they were all

beneath his roof; and while Louisa, under Mrs Harville's direction,

was conveyed up stairs, and given possession of her own bed,

assistance, cordials, restoratives were supplied by her husband

to all who needed them.
  
  

Louisa had once opened her eyes, but soon closed them again,

without apparent consciousness.  This had been a proof of life,

however, of service to her sister; and Henrietta, though perfectly

incapable of being in the same room with Louisa, was kept,

by the agitation of hope and fear, from a return of her own insensibility.

Mary, too, was growing calmer.
  
  

The surgeon was with them almost before it had seemed possible.

They were sick with horror, while he examined; but he was not hopeless.

The head had received a severe contusion, but he had seen greater injuries

recovered from:  he was by no means hopeless; he spoke cheerfully.
  
  

That he did not regard it as a desperate case, that he did not say

a few hours must end it, was at first felt, beyond the hope of most;

and the ecstasy of such a reprieve, the rejoicing, deep and silent,

after a few fervent ejaculations of gratitude to Heaven had been offered,

may be conceived.
  
  

The tone, the look, with which "Thank God!" was uttered

by Captain Wentworth, Anne was sure could never be forgotten by her;

nor the sight of him afterwards, as he sat near a table, leaning over it

with folded arms and face concealed, as if overpowered by

the various feelings of his soul, and trying by prayer and reflection

to calm them.
  
  

Louisa's limbs had escaped.  There was no injury but to the head.
  
  

It now became necessary for the party to consider what was best to be done,

as to their general situation.  They were now able to speak to each other

and consult.  That Louisa must remain where she was, however distressing

to her friends to be involving the Harvilles in such trouble,

did not admit a doubt.  Her removal was impossible.  The Harvilles

silenced all scruples; and, as much as they could, all gratitude.

They had looked forward and arranged everything before the others

began to reflect.  Captain Benwick must give up his room to them,

and get another bed elsewhere; and the whole was settled.

They were only concerned that the house could accommodate no more;

and yet perhaps, by "putting the children away in the maid's room,

or swinging a cot somewhere," they could hardly bear to think of not

finding room for two or three besides, supposing they might wish to stay;

though, with regard to any attendance on Miss Musgrove, there need not be

the least uneasiness in leaving her to Mrs Harville's care entirely.

Mrs Harville was a very experienced nurse, and her nursery-maid,

who had lived with her long, and gone about with her everywhere,

was just such another.  Between these two, she could want

no possible attendance by day or night.  And all this was said

with a truth and sincerity of feeling irresistible.
  
  

Charles, Henrietta, and Captain Wentworth were the three in consultation,

and for a little while it was only an interchange of perplexity and terror.

"Uppercross, the necessity of some one's going to Uppercross;

the news to be conveyed; how it could be broken to Mr and Mrs Musgrove;

the lateness of the morning; an hour already gone since they

ought to have been off; the impossibility of being in tolerable time."

At first, they were capable of nothing more to the purpose

than such exclamations; but, after a while, Captain Wentworth,

exerting himself, said--
  
  

"We must be decided, and without the loss of another minute.

Every minute is valuable.  Some one must resolve on being off

for Uppercross instantly.  Musgrove, either you or I must go."
  
  

Charles agreed, but declared his resolution of not going away.

He would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs Harville;

Chapter 12

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anne and Henrietta, finding themselves the earliest of the party

the next morning, agreed to stroll down to the sea before breakfast.

They went to the sands, to watch the flowing of the tide,

which a fine south-easterly breeze was bringing in with all the grandeur

which so flat a shore admitted.  They praised the morning;

gloried in the sea; sympathized in the delight of the fresh-feeling

breeze--and were silent; till Henrietta suddenly began again with--
  
  

"Oh! yes,--I am quite convinced that, with very few exceptions,

the sea-air always does good.  There can be no doubt of its having been

of the greatest service to Dr Shirley, after his illness,

last spring twelve-month.  He declares himself, that coming to Lyme

for a month, did him more good than all the medicine he took;

and, that being by the sea, always makes him feel young again.

Now, I cannot help thinking it a pity that he does not live

entirely by the sea.  I do think he had better leave Uppercross entirely,

and fix at Lyme.  Do not you, Anne?  Do not you agree with me,

that it is the best thing he could do, both for himself and Mrs Shirley?

She has cousins here, you know, and many acquaintance, which would

make it cheerful for her, and I am sure she would be glad

to get to a place where she could have medical attendance at hand,

in case of his having another seizure.  Indeed I think it quite melancholy

to have such excellent people as Dr and Mrs Shirley, who have been

doing good all their lives, wearing out their last days in a place

like Uppercross, where, excepting our family, they seem shut out

from all the world.  I wish his friends would propose it to him.

I really think they ought.  And, as to procuring a dispensation,

there could be no difficulty at his time of life, and with his character.

My only doubt is, whether anything could persuade him to leave his parish.

He is so very strict and scrupulous in his notions; over-scrupulous

I must say.  Do not you think, Anne, it is being over-scrupulous?

Do not you think it is quite a mistaken point of conscience,

when a clergyman sacrifices his health for the sake of duties,

which may be just as well performed by another person?  And at Lyme too,

only seventeen miles off, he would be near enough to hear,

if people thought there was anything to complain of."
  
  

Anne smiled more than once to herself during this speech,

and entered into the subject, as ready to do good by entering into

the feelings of a young lady as of a young man, though here it was good

of a lower standard, for what could be offered but general acquiescence?

She said all that was reasonable and proper on the business;

felt the claims of Dr Shirley to repose as she ought; saw how very

desirable it was that he should have some active, respectable young man,

as a resident curate, and was even courteous enough to hint at

the advantage of such resident curate's being married.
  
  

"I wish," said Henrietta, very well pleased with her companion,

"I wish Lady Russell lived at Uppercross, and were intimate

with Dr Shirley.  I have always heard of Lady Russell as a woman of

the greatest influence with everybody!  I always look upon her as able

to persuade a person to anything!  I am  of her, as I have

told you before, quite  of her, because she is so very clever;

but I respect her amazingly, and wish we had such a neighbour

at Uppercross."
  
  

Anne was amused by Henrietta's manner of being grateful,

and amused also that the course of events and the new interests

of Henrietta's views should have placed her friend at all in favour

with any of the Musgrove family; she had only time, however,

for a general answer, and a wish that such another woman

were at Uppercross, before all subjects suddenly ceased,

on seeing Louisa and Captain Wentworth coming towards them.

They came also for a stroll till breakfast was likely to be ready;

but Louisa recollecting, immediately afterwards that she had something

to procure at a shop, invited them all to go back with her into the town.

They were all at her disposal.
  
  

When they came to the steps, leading upwards from the beach, a gentleman,

at the same moment preparing to come down, politely drew back,

and stopped to give them way.  They ascended and passed him;

and as they passed, Anne's face caught his eye, and he looked at her

with a degree of earnest admiration, which she could not be insensible of.

She was looking remarkably well; her very regular, very pretty features,

having the bloom and freshness of youth restored by the fine wind

which had been blowing on her complexion, and by the animation of eye

which it had also produced.  It was evident that the gentleman,

(completely a gentleman in manner) admired her exceedingly.

Captain Wentworth looked round at her instantly in a way which

shewed his noticing of it.  He gave her a momentary glance,

a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, "That man is struck with you,

and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again."
  
  

After attending Louisa through her business, and loitering about

a little longer, they returned to the inn; and Anne, in passing afterwards

quickly from her own chamber to their dining-room, had nearly run against

the very same gentleman, as he came out of an adjoining apartment.

She had before conjectured him to be a stranger like themselves,

and determined that a well-looking groom, who was strolling about

near the two inns as they came back, should be his servant.

Both master and man being in mourning assisted the idea.

It was now proved that he belonged to the same inn as themselves;

and this second meeting, short as it was, also proved again

by the gentleman's looks, that he thought hers very lovely,

and by the readiness and propriety of his apologies, that he was

a man of exceedingly good manners.  He seemed about thirty,

and though not handsome, had an agreeable person.  Anne felt that

she should like to know who he was.
  
  

They had nearly done breakfast, when the sound of a carriage,

(almost the first they had heard since entering Lyme) drew half the party

to the window.  It was a gentleman's carriage, a curricle,

but only coming round from the stable-yard to the front door;

somebody must be going away.  It was driven by a servant in mourning.
  
  

The word curricle made Charles Musgrove jump up that he might

compare it with his own; the servant in mourning roused Anne's curiosity,

and the whole six were collected to look, by the time the owner

of the curricle was to be seen issuing from the door amidst the bows

and civilities of the household, and taking his seat, to drive off.
  
  

"Ah!" cried Captain Wentworth, instantly, and with half a glance at Anne,

"it is the very man we passed."
  
  

The Miss Musgroves agreed to it; and having all kindly watched him

as far up the hill as they could, they returned to the breakfast table.

The waiter came into the room soon afterwards.
  
  

"ray," said Captain Wentworth, immediately, "can you tell us the name

of the gentleman who is just gone away?"
  
  

"Yes, Sir, a Mr Elliot, a gentleman of large fortune, came in last night

from Sidmouth.  Dare say you heard the carriage, sir, while you were

at dinner; and going on now for Crewkherne, in his way to Bath

and London."
  
  

"Elliot!"  Many had looked on each other, and many had repeated the name,

before all this had been got through, even by the smart rapidity

of a waiter.
  
  

"Bless me!" cried Mary; "it must be our cousin; it must be our Mr Elliot,

it must, indeed!  Charles, Anne, must not it?  In mourning, you see,

just as our Mr Elliot must be.  How very extraordinary!

In the very same inn with us!  Anne, must not it be our Mr Elliot?

my father's next heir?  Pray sir," turning to the waiter,

"did not you hear, did not his servant say whether he belonged

to the Kellynch family?"
  
  

"No, ma'am, he did not mention no particular family; but he said

his master was a very rich gentleman, and would be a baronight some day."
  
  

"There! you see!" cried Mary in an ecstasy, "just as I said!

Heir to Sir Walter Elliot!  I was sure that would come out,

if it was so.  Depend upon it, that is a circumstance which his servants

take care to publish, wherever he goes.  But, Anne, only conceive

how extraordinary!  I wish I had looked at him more.  I wish we had

been aware in time, who it was, that he might have been introduced to us.

What a pity that we should not have been introduced to each other!

Do you think he had the Elliot countenance?  I hardly looked at him,

I was looking at the horses; but I think he had something

of the Elliot countenance, I wonder the arms did not strike me!

Oh! the great-coat was hanging over the panel, and hid the arms,

so it did; otherwise, I am sure, I should have observed them,

and the livery too; if the servant had not been in mourning,

one should have known him by the livery."
  
  

"utting all these very extraordinary circumstances together,"

said Captain Wentworth, "we must consider it to be the arrangement

of Providence, that you should not be introduced to your cousin."
  
  

When she could command Mary's attention, Anne quietly tried

to convince her that their father and Mr Elliot had not, for many years,

been on such terms as to make the power of attempting an introduction

at all desirable.
  
  

At the same time, however, it was a secret gratification to herself

to have seen her cousin, and to know that the future owner of Kellynch

was undoubtedly a gentleman, and had an air of good sense.

She would not, upon any account, mention her having met with him

the second time; luckily Mary did not much attend to their having

passed close by him in their earlier walk, but she would have felt

quite ill-used by Anne's having actually run against him in the passage,

and received his very polite excuses, while she had never been

near him at all; no, that cousinly little interview must remain

a perfect secret.
  
  

"Of course," said Mary, "you will mention our seeing Mr Elliot,

the next time you write to Bath.  I think my father certainly

ought to hear of it; do mention all about him."
  
  

Anne avoided a direct reply, but it was just the circumstance

which she considered as not merely unnecessary to be communicated,

but as what ought to be suppressed.  The offence which had been given

her father, many years back, she knew; Elizabeth's particular share in it

she suspected; and that Mr Elliot's idea always produced irritation in both

was beyond a doubt.  Mary never wrote to Bath herself; all the toil

of keeping up a slow and unsatisfactory correspondence with Elizabeth

fell on Anne.
  
  

Breakfast had not been long over, when they were joined by Captain

and Mrs Harville and Captain Benwick; with whom they had appointed

to take their last walk about Lyme.  They ought to be setting off

for Uppercross by one, and in the mean while were to be all together,

and out of doors as long as they could.
  
  

Anne found Captain Benwick getting near her, as soon as they were all

fairly in the street.  Their conversation the preceding evening

did not disincline him to seek her again; and they walked together

some time, talking as before of Mr Scott and Lord Byron,

and still as unable as before, and as unable as any other two readers,

to think exactly alike of the merits of either, till something

occasioned an almost general change amongst their party, and instead of

Captain Benwick, she had Captain Harville by her side.
  
  

"Miss Elliot," said he, speaking rather low, "you have done a good deed

in making that poor fellow talk so much.  I wish he could have

such company oftener.  It is bad for him, I know, to be shut up as he is;

but what can we do?  We cannot part."
  
  

"No," said Anne, "that I can easily believe to be impossible;

but in time, perhaps--we know what time does in every case of affliction,

and you must remember, Captain Harville, that your friend

may yet be called a young mourner--only last summer, I understand."
  
  

"Ay, true enough," (with a deep sigh) "only June."
  
  

"And not known to him, perhaps, so soon."
  
  

"Not till the first week of August, when he came home from the Cape,

just made into the Grappler.  I was at Plymouth dreading to hear of him;

he sent in letters, but the Grappler was under orders for Portsmouth.

There the news must follow him, but who was to tell it? not I.

I would as soon have been run up to the yard-arm.  Nobody could do it,

but that good fellow" (pointing to Captain Wentworth.)  "The Laconia

had come into Plymouth the week before; no danger of her

being sent to sea again.  He stood his chance for the rest;

wrote up for leave of absence, but without waiting the return,

travelled night and day till he got to Portsmouth, rowed off

to the Grappler that instant, and never left the poor fellow for a week.

That's what he did, and nobody else could have saved poor James.

You may think, Miss Elliot, whether he is dear to us!"
  
  

Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much

in reply as her own feeling could accomplish, or as his seemed

able to bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject,

and when he spoke again, it was of something totally different.
  
  

Mrs Harville's giving it as her opinion that her husband would have

quite walking enough by the time he reached home, determined the direction

of all the party in what was to be their last walk; they would

accompany them to their door, and then return and set off themselves.

By all their calculations there was just time for this; but as they drew

near the Cobb, there was such a general wish to walk along it once more,

all were so inclined, and Louisa soon grew so determined,

that the difference of a quarter of an hour, it was found,

would be no difference at all; so with all the kind leave-taking,

and all the kind interchange of invitations and promises which

may be imagined, they parted from Captain and Mrs Harville

at their own door, and still accompanied by Captain Benwick,

who seemed to cling to them to the last, proceeded to make

the proper adieus to the Cobb.
  
  

Anne found Captain Benwick again drawing near her.  Lord Byron's

"dark blue seas" could not fail of being brought forward by

their present view, and she gladly gave him all her attention as long as

attention was possible.  It was soon drawn, perforce another way.
  
  

There was too much wind to make the high part of the new Cobb pleasant

for the ladies, and they agreed to get down the steps to the lower,

and all were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight,

excepting Louisa; she must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth.

In all their walks, he had had to jump her from the stiles;

the sensation was delightful to her.  The hardness of the pavement

for her feet, made him less willing upon the present occasion;

he did it, however.  She was safely down, and instantly,

to show her enjoyment, ran up the steps to be jumped down again.

He advised her against it, thought the jar too great; but no,

he reasoned and talked in vain, she smiled and said, "I am determined

I will:" he put out his hands; she was too precipitate by half a second,

she fell on the pavement on the Lower Cobb, and was taken up lifeless!

There was no wound, no blood, no visible bruise; but her eyes were closed,

she breathed not, her face was like death.  The horror of the moment

to all who stood around!
  
  

Captain Wentworth, who had caught her up, knelt with her in his arms,

looking on her with a face as pallid as her own, in an agony of silence.

"She is dead! she is dead!" screamed Mary, catching hold of her

husband, and contributing with his own horror to make him immoveable;

and in another moment, Henrietta, sinking under the conviction, lost

her senses too, and would have fallen on the steps, but for Captain

Benwick and Anne, who caught and supported her between them.
  
  

"Is there no one to help me?" were the first words which

burst from Captain Wentworth, in a tone of despair, and as if

all his own strength were gone.
  
  

"Go to him, go to him," cried Anne, "for heaven's sake go to him.

I can support her myself.  Leave me, and go to him.  Rub her hands,

rub her temples; here are salts; take them, take them."
  
  

Captain Benwick obeyed, and Charles at the same moment,

disengaging himself from his wife, they were both with him;

and Louisa was raised up and supported more firmly between them,

and everything was done that Anne had prompted, but in vain;

while Captain Wentworth, staggering against the wall for his support,

exclaimed in the bitterest agony--
  
  

"Oh God! her father and mother!"
  
  

"A surgeon!" said Anne.
  
  

He caught the word; it seemed to rouse him at once, and saying only--

"True, true, a surgeon this instant," was darting away,

when Anne eagerly suggested--
  
  

"Captain Benwick, would not it be better for Captain Benwick?

He knows where a surgeon is to be found."
  
  

Every one capable of thinking felt the advantage of the idea,

and in a moment (it was all done in rapid moments) Captain Benwick had

resigned the poor corpse-like  figure entirely to the brother's care,

and was off for the town with the utmost rapidity.
  
  

As to the wretched party left behind, it could scarcely be said

which of the three, who were completely rational, was suffering most:

Captain Wentworth, Anne, or Charles, who, really a very affectionate

brother, hung over Louisa with sobs of grief, and could only turn his eyes

from one sister, to see the other in a state as insensible,

or to witness the hysterical agitations of his wife, calling on him

for help which he could not give.
  
  

Anne, attending with all the strength and zeal, and thought,

which instinct supplied, to Henrietta, still tried, at intervals,

to suggest comfort to the others, tried to quiet Mary, to animate Charles,

to assuage the feelings of Captain Wentworth.  Both seemed to look to her

for directions.

Chapter 11

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The time now approached for Lady Russell's return:  the day was even fixed;

and Anne, being engaged to join her as soon as she was resettled,

was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and beginning

to think how her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.
  
  

It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth,

within half a mile of him; they would have to frequent the same church,

and there must be intercourse between the two families.

This was against her; but on the other hand, he spent so much of his time

at Uppercross, that in removing thence she might be considered rather

as leaving him behind, than as going towards him; and, upon the whole,

she believed she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer,

almost as certainly as in her change of domestic society,

in leaving poor Mary for Lady Russell.
  
  

She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing

Captain Wentworth at the Hall:  those rooms had witnessed

former meetings which would be brought too painfully before her;

but she was yet more anxious for the possibility of Lady Russell and

Captain Wentworth never meeting anywhere.  They did not like each other,

and no renewal of acquaintance now could do any good; and were Lady Russell

to see them together, she might think that he had too much self-possession,

and she too little.
  
  

These points formed her chief solicitude in anticipating

her removal from Uppercross, where she felt she had been stationed

quite long enough.  Her usefulness to little Charles would always

give some sweetness to the memory of her two months' visit there,

but he was gaining strength apace, and she had nothing else to stay for.
  
  

The conclusion of her visit, however, was diversified in a way

which she had not at all imagined.  Captain Wentworth, after being unseen

and unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them

to justify himself by a relation of what had kept him away.
  
  

A letter from his friend, Captain Harville, having found him out at last,

had brought intelligence of Captain Harville's being settled

with his family at Lyme for the winter; of their being therefore,

quite unknowingly, within twenty miles of each other.  Captain Harville

had never been in good health since a severe wound which he received

two years before, and Captain Wentworth's anxiety to see him

had determined him to go immediately to Lyme.  He had been there

for four-and-twenty hours.  His acquittal was complete,

his friendship warmly honoured, a lively interest excited for his friend,

and his description of the fine country about Lyme so feelingly attended to

by the party, that an earnest desire to see Lyme themselves,

and a project for going thither was the consequence.
  
  

The young people were all wild to see Lyme.  Captain Wentworth talked

of going there again himself, it was only seventeen miles from Uppercross;

though November, the weather was by no means bad; and, in short,

Louisa, who was the most eager of the eager, having formed

the resolution to go, and besides the pleasure of doing as she liked,

being now armed with the idea of merit in maintaining her own way,

bore down all the wishes of her father and mother for putting it off

till summer; and to Lyme they were to go--Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta,

Louisa, and Captain Wentworth.
  
  

The first heedless scheme had been to go in the morning and return at night;

but to this Mr Musgrove, for the sake of his horses, would not consent;

and when it came to be rationally considered, a day in

the middle of November would not leave much time for seeing a new place,

after deducting seven hours, as the nature of the country required,

for going and returning.  They were, consequently, to stay the night there,

and not to be expected back till the next day's dinner.  This was felt

to be a considerable amendment; and though they all met at the Great House

at rather an early breakfast hour, and set off very punctually,

it was so much past noon before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove's coach

containing the four ladies, and Charles's curricle, in which

he drove Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme,

and entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself,

that it was very evident they would not have more than time

for looking about them, before the light and warmth of the day were gone.
  
  

After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the inns,

the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly

down to the sea.  They were come too late in the year for any amusement

or variety which Lyme, as a public place, might offer.  The rooms

were shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family

but of the residents left; and, as there is nothing to admire

in the buildings themselves, the remarkable situation of the town,

the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb,

skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the season,

is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb itself,

its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful

line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what

the stranger's eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be,

who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme,

to make him wish to know it better.  The scenes in its neighbourhood,

Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive sweeps of country,

and still more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by dark cliffs,

where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the happiest spot

for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied contemplation;

the woody varieties of the cheerful village of Up Lyme; and, above all,

Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic rocks, where

the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant growth,

declare that many a generation must have passed away since the first

partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a state,

where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may

more than equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed

Isle of Wight:  these places must be visited, and visited again,

to make the worth of Lyme understood.
  
  

The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted

and melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves

on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze

on a first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all,

proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself

and on Captain Wentworth's account:  for in a small house,

near the foot of an old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled.

Captain Wentworth turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on,

and he was to join them on the Cobb.
  
  

They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even Louisa

seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long,

when they saw him coming after them, with three companions,

all well known already, by description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville,

and a Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.
  
  

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia;

and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him,

on his return from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as

an excellent young man and an officer, whom he had always valued highly,

which must have stamped him well in the esteem of every listener,

had been followed by a little history of his private life,

which rendered him perfectly interesting in the eyes of all the ladies.

He had been engaged to Captain Harville's sister, and was now

mourning her loss.  They had been a year or two waiting for fortune

and promotion.  Fortune came, his prize-money as lieutenant being great;

promotion, too, came at last; but Fanny Harville did not live to know it.

She had died the preceding summer while he was at sea.  Captain Wentworth

believed it impossible for man to be more attached to woman

than poor Benwick had been to Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply

afflicted under the dreadful change.  He considered his disposition

as of the sort which must suffer heavily, uniting very strong feelings

with quiet, serious, and retiring manners, and a decided taste for reading,

and sedentary pursuits.  To finish the interest of the story,

the friendship between him and the Harvilles seemed, if possible,

augmented by the event which closed all their views of alliance,

and Captain Benwick was now living with them entirely.  Captain Harville

had taken his present house for half a year; his taste, and his health,

and his fortune, all directing him to a residence inexpensive,

and by the sea; and the grandeur of the country, and the retirement

of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly adapted to Captain Benwick's

state of mind.  The sympathy and good-will excited towards Captain Benwick

was very great.
  
  

"And yet," said Anne to herself, as they now moved forward

to meet the party, "he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart

than I have.  I cannot believe his prospects so blighted for ever.

He is younger than I am; younger in feeling, if not in fact;

younger as a man.  He will rally again, and be happy with another."
  
  

They all met, and were introduced.  Captain Harville was a tall,

dark man, with a sensible, benevolent countenance; a little lame;

and from strong features and want of health, looking much older

than Captain Wentworth.  Captain Benwick looked, and was,

the youngest of the three, and, compared with either of them,

a little man.  He had a pleasing face and a melancholy air,

just as he ought to have, and drew back from conversation.
  
  

Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners,

was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and obliging.

Mrs Harville, a degree less polished than her husband, seemed, however,

to have the same good feelings; and nothing could be more pleasant

than their desire of considering the whole party as friends of their own,

because the friends of Captain Wentworth, or more kindly hospitable

than their entreaties for their all promising to dine with them.

The dinner, already ordered at the inn, was at last, though unwillingly,

accepted as a excuse; but they seemed almost hurt that Captain Wentworth

should have brought any such party to Lyme, without considering it

as a thing of course that they should dine with them.
  
  

There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this,

and such a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon,

so unlike the usual  of give-and-take invitations, and dinners

of formality and display, that Anne felt her spirits not likely to be

benefited by an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers.

"These would have been all my friends," was her thought;

and she had to struggle against a great tendency to lowness.
  
  

On quitting the Cobb, they all went in-doors with their new friends,

and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart

could think capable of accommodating so many.  Anne had

a moment's astonishment on the subject herself; but it was soon lost

in the pleasanter feelings which sprang from the sight of all

the ingenious contrivances and nice arrangements of Captain Harville,

to turn the actual space to the best account, to supply the deficiencies

of lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors

against the winter storms to be expected.  The varieties in

the fitting-up of the rooms, where the common necessaries

provided by the owner, in the common indifferent plight,

were contrasted with some few articles of a rare species of wood,

excellently worked up, and with something curious and valuable

from all the distant countries Captain Harville had visited,

were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with his profession,

the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence on his habits,

the picture of repose and domestic happiness it presented,

made it to her a something more, or less, than gratification.
  
  

Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived

excellent accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves,

for a tolerable collection of well-bound volumes, the property of

Captain Benwick.  His lameness prevented him from taking much exercise;

but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with

constant employment within.  He drew, he varnished, he carpentered,

he glued; he made toys for the children; he fashioned new netting-needles

and pins with improvements; and if everything else was done,

sat down to his large fishing-net at one corner of the room.
  
  

Anne thought she left great happiness behind her when they

quitted the house; and Louisa, by whom she found herself walking,

burst forth into raptures of admiration and delight on the character

of the navy; their friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness,

their uprightness; protesting that she was convinced of sailors having

more worth and warmth than any other set of men in England;

that they only knew how to live, and they only deserved to be

respected and loved.
  
  

They went back to dress and dine; and so well had the scheme

answered already, that nothing was found amiss; though its being
"so entirely out of season," and the "no thoroughfare of Lyme,"
and the "no expectation of company," had brought many apologies
from the heads of the inn.
Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened
to being in Captain Wentworth's company than she had at first imagined could ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the interchange of the common civilities attending on it
(they never got beyond), was become a mere nothing.
  
  

The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow,

but Captain Harville had promised them a visit in the evening;

and he came, bringing his friend also, which was more than

had been expected, it having been agreed that Captain Benwick

had all the appearance of being oppressed by the presence of

so many strangers.  He ventured among them again, however,

though his spirits certainly did not seem fit for the mirth

of the party in general.
  
  

While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the room,

and by recurring to former days, supplied anecdotes in abundance

to occupy and entertain the others, it fell to Anne's lot to be placed

rather apart with Captain Benwick; and a very good impulse

of her nature obliged her to begin an acquaintance with him.

He was shy, and disposed to abstraction; but the engaging mildness of

her countenance, and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect;

and Anne was well repaid the first trouble of exertion.

He was evidently a young man of considerable taste in reading,

though principally in poetry; and besides the persuasion of having

given him at least an evening's indulgence in the discussion of subjects,

which his usual companions had probably no concern in, she had the hope

of being of real use to him in some suggestions as to the duty and

benefit of struggling against affliction, which had naturally grown out

of their conversation.  For, though shy, he did not seem reserved;

it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their

usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of

the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of opinion

as to the first-rate poets, trying to ascertain whether Marmion

or The Lady of the Lake were to be preferred, and how ranked the Giaour

and The Bride of Abydos; and moreover, how the Giaour was to be pronounced,

he showed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs

of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony

of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines

which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness,

and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood,

that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry,

and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be

seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely;

and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly

were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
  
  

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion

to his situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself

the right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend

a larger allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested

to particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists,

such collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters

of worth and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment

as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts,

and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.
  
  

Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for

the interest implied; and though with a shake of the head,

and sighs which declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books

on grief like his, noted down the names of those she recommended,

and promised to procure and read them.
  
  

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea

of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing,
on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists
and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

The sounds were retreating, and Anne distinguished no more.

Her own emotions still kept her fixed.  She had much to recover from,

before she could move.  The listener's proverbial fate was

not absolutely hers; she had heard no evil of herself, but she had heard

a great deal of very painful import.  She saw how her own character

was considered by Captain Wentworth, and there had been just that degree

of feeling and curiosity about her in his manner which must give her

extreme agitation.
  
  

As soon as she could, she went after Mary, and having found,

and walked back with her to their former station, by the stile,

felt some comfort in their whole party being immediately afterwards

collected, and once more in motion together.  Her spirits wanted

the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.
  
  

Charles and Henrietta returned, bringing, as may be conjectured,

Charles Hayter with them.  The minutiae of the business Anne

could not attempt to understand; even Captain Wentworth did not seem

admitted to perfect confidence here; but that there had been a withdrawing

on the gentleman's side, and a relenting on the lady's, and that they

were now very glad to be together again, did not admit a doubt.

Henrietta looked a little ashamed, but very well pleased;--

Charles Hayter exceedingly happy:  and they were devoted to each other

almost from the first instant of their all setting forward for Uppercross.
  
  

Everything now marked out Louisa for Captain Wentworth;

nothing could be plainer; and where many divisions were necessary,

or even where they were not, they walked side by side nearly as much

as the other two.  In a long strip of meadow land, where there was

ample space for all, they were thus divided, forming three distinct parties;

and to that party of the three which boasted least animation,

and least complaisance, Anne necessarily belonged.  She joined Charles

and Mary, and was tired enough to be very glad of Charles's other arm;

but Charles, though in very good humour with her, was out of temper

with his wife.  Mary had shewn herself disobliging to him,

and was now to reap the consequence, which consequence was

his dropping her arm almost every moment to cut off the heads

of some nettles in the hedge with his switch; and when Mary began

to complain of it, and lament her being ill-used, according to custom,

in being on the hedge side, while Anne was never incommoded on the other,

he dropped the arms of both to hunt after a weasel which he had

a momentary glance of, and they could hardly get him along at all.
  
  

This long meadow bordered a lane, which their footpath, at the end of it

was to cross, and when the party had all reached the gate of exit,

the carriage advancing in the same direction, which had been

some time heard, was just coming up, and proved to be Admiral Croft's gig.

He and his wife had taken their intended drive, and were returning home.

Upon hearing how long a walk the young people had engaged in,

they kindly offered a seat to any lady who might be particularly tired;

it would save her a full mile, and they were going through Uppercross.

The invitation was general, and generally declined.  The Miss Musgroves

were not at all tired, and Mary was either offended, by not being asked

before any of the others, or what Louisa called the Elliot pride

could not endure to make a third in a one horse chaise.
  
  

The walking party had crossed the lane, and were surmounting an

opposite stile, and the Admiral was putting his horse in motion again,

when Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment to say something

to his sister.  The something might be guessed by its effects.
  
  

"Miss Elliot, I am sure you are tired," cried Mrs Croft.

"Do let us have the pleasure of taking you home.  Here is excellent room

for three, I assure you.  If we were all like you, I believe we might

sit four.  You must, indeed, you must."
  
  

Anne was still in the lane; and though instinctively beginning to decline,

she was not allowed to proceed.  The Admiral's kind urgency

came in support of his wife's; they would not be refused;

they compressed themselves into the smallest possible space

to leave her a corner, and Captain Wentworth, without saying a word,

turned to her, and quietly obliged her to be assisted into the carriage.
  
  

Yes; he had done it.  She was in the carriage, and felt that he had

placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it,

that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution

to give her rest.  She was very much affected by the view of

his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent.

This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before.

She understood him.  He could not forgive her, but he could not

be unfeeling.  Though condemning her for the past, and considering it

with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her,

and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer,

without the desire of giving her relief.  It was a remainder

of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged

friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart,

which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded

of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.
  
  

Her answers to the kindness and the remarks of her companions

were at first unconsciously given.  They had travelled half their way

along the rough lane, before she was quite awake to what they said.

She then found them talking of "Frederick."
  
  

"He certainly means to have one or other of those two girls, Sophy,"

said the Admiral; "but there is no saying which.  He has been

running after them, too, long enough, one would think, to make up his mind.

Ay, this comes of the peace.  If it were war now, he would have

settled it long ago.  We sailors, Miss Elliot, cannot afford to make

long courtships in time of war.  How many days was it, my dear,

between the first time of my seeing you and our sitting down together

in our lodgings at North Yarmouth?"
  
  

"We had better not talk about it, my dear," replied Mrs Croft, pleasantly;

"for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an understanding,

she would never be persuaded that we could be happy together.

I had known you by character, however, long before."
  
  

"Well, and I had heard of you as a very pretty girl, and what were we

to wait for besides?  I do not like having such things so long in hand.

I wish Frederick would spread a little more canvass, and bring us home

one of these young ladies to Kellynch.  Then there would always

be company for them.  And very nice young ladies they both are;

I hardly know one from the other."
  
  

"Very good humoured, unaffected girls, indeed," said Mrs Croft,

in a tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that

her keener powers might not consider either of them as quite worthy

of her brother; "and a very respectable family.  One could not be

connected with better people.  My dear Admiral, that post!

we shall certainly take that post."
  
  

But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily

passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out

her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart;

and Anne, with some amusement at their  of driving,

which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance

of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage.

Other opportunities of making her observations could not fail to occur.

Anne had soon been in company with all the four together often enough

to have an opinion, though too wise to acknowledge as much at home,

where she knew it would have satisfied neither husband nor wife;

for while she considered Louisa to be rather the favourite,

she could not but think, as far as she might dare to judge from memory

and experience, that Captain Wentworth was not in love with either.

They were more in love with him; yet there it was not love.

It was a little fever of admiration; but it might, probably must,

end in love with some.  Charles Hayter seemed aware of being slighted,

and yet Henrietta had sometimes the air of being divided between them.

Anne longed for the power of representing to them all what they were about,

and of pointing out some of the evils they were exposing themselves to.

She did not attribute guile to any.  It was the highest satisfaction

to her to believe Captain Wentworth not in the least aware

of the pain he was occasioning.  There was no triumph, no pitiful triumph

in his manner.  He had, probably, never heard, and never thought of

any claims of Charles Hayter.  He was only wrong in accepting

the attentions (for accepting must be the word) of two young women at once.
  
  

After a short struggle, however, Charles Hayter seemed to quit the field.

Three days had passed without his coming once to Uppercross;

a most decided change.  He had even refused one regular invitation to dinner;

and having been found on the occasion by Mr Musgrove with some large books

before him, Mr and Mrs Musgrove were sure all could not be right,

and talked, with grave faces, of his studying himself to death.

It was Mary's hope and belief that he had received a positive dismissal

from Henrietta, and her husband lived under the constant dependence

of seeing him to-morrow.  Anne could only feel that Charles Hayter

was wise.
  
  

One morning, about this time Charles Musgrove and Captain Wentworth

being gone a-shooting together, as the sisters in the Cottage

were sitting quietly at work, they were visited at the window

by the sisters from the Mansion-house.
  
  

It was a very fine November day, and the Miss Musgroves came

through the little grounds, and stopped for no other purpose than to say,

that they were going to take a long walk, and therefore concluded

Mary could not like to go with them; and when Mary immediately replied,

with some jealousy at not being supposed a good walker, "Oh, yes,

I should like to join you very much, I am very fond of a long walk;"

Anne felt persuaded, by the looks of the two girls, that it was precisely

what they did not wish, and admired again the sort of necessity

which the family habits seemed to produce, of everything being

to be communicated, and everything being to be done together,

however undesired and inconvenient.  She tried to dissuade Mary from going,

but in vain; and that being the case, thought it best to accept

the Miss Musgroves' much more cordial invitation to herself to go likewise,

as she might be useful in turning back with her sister, and lessening

the interference in any plan of their own.
  
  

"I cannot imagine why they should suppose I should not like a long walk,"

said Mary, as she went up stairs.  "Everybody is always supposing

that I am not a good walker; and yet they would not have been pleased,

if we had refused to join them.  When people come in this manner

on purpose to ask us, how can one say no?"
  
  

Just as they were setting off, the gentlemen returned.  They had taken out

a young dog, who had spoilt their sport, and sent them back early.

Their time and strength, and spirits, were, therefore, exactly ready

for this walk, and they entered into it with pleasure.  Could Anne

have foreseen such a junction, she would have staid at home; but,

from some feelings of interest and curiosity, she fancied now that it was

too late to retract, and the whole six set forward together

in the direction chosen by the Miss Musgroves, who evidently

considered the walk as under their guidance.
  
  

Anne's object was, not to be in the way of anybody; and where

the narrow paths across the fields made many separations necessary,

to keep with her brother and sister.  Her pleasure in the walk

must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of

the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves, and withered hedges,

and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical

descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and

inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness,

that season which had drawn from every poet, worthy of being read,

some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.

She occupied her mind as much as possible in such like musings

and quotations; but it was not possible, that when within reach

of Captain Wentworth's conversation with either of the Miss Musgroves,

she should not try to hear it; yet she caught little very remarkable.

It was mere lively chat, such as any young persons, on an intimate footing,

might fall into.  He was more engaged with Louisa than with Henrietta.

Louisa certainly put more forward for his notice than her sister.

This distinction appeared to increase, and there was one speech

of Louisa's which struck her.  After one of the many praises of the day,

which were continually bursting forth, Captain Wentworth added: --
  
  

"What glorious weather for the Admiral and my sister!  They meant to take

a long drive this morning; perhaps we may hail them from

some of these hills.  They talked of coming into this side of the country.

I wonder whereabouts they will upset to-day.  Oh! it does happen

very often, I assure you; but my sister makes nothing of it;

she would as lieve be tossed out as not."
  
  

"Ah! You make the most of it, I know," cried Louisa, "but if it were

really so, I should do just the same in her place.  If I loved a man,

as she loves the Admiral, I would always be with him, nothing should ever

separate us, and I would rather be overturned by him, than driven safely

by anybody else."
  
  

It was spoken with enthusiasm.
  
  

"Had you?" cried he, catching the same tone; "I honour you!"

And there was silence between them for a little while.
  
  

Anne could not immediately fall into a quotation again.  The sweet scenes

of autumn were for a while put by, unless some tender sonnet,

fraught with the apt analogy of the declining year, with declining

happiness, and the images of youth and hope, and spring, all gone together,

blessed her memory.  She roused herself to say, as they struck by order

into another path, "Is not this one of the ways to Winthrop?"

But nobody heard, or, at least, nobody answered her.
  
  

Winthrop, however, or its environs--for young men are, sometimes

to be met with, strolling about near home--was their destination;

and after another half mile of gradual ascent through large enclosures,

where the ploughs at work, and the fresh made path spoke the farmer

counteracting the sweets of poetical despondence, and meaning

to have spring again, they gained the summit of the most considerable hill,

which parted Uppercross and Winthrop, and soon commanded a full view

of the latter, at the foot of the hill on the other side.
  
  

Winthrop, without beauty and without dignity, was stretched before them

an indifferent house, standing low, and hemmed in by the barns and

buildings of a farm-yard.
  
  

Mary exclaimed, "Bless me! here is Winthrop.  I declare I had no idea!

Well now, I think we had better turn back; I am excessively tired."
  
  

Henrietta, conscious and ashamed, and seeing no cousin Charles

walking along any path, or leaning against any gate, was ready

to do as Mary wished; but "No!" said Charles Musgrove, and "No, no!"

cried Louisa more eagerly, and taking her sister aside, seemed to be

arguing the matter warmly.
  
  

Charles, in the meanwhile, was very decidedly declaring his resolution

of calling on his aunt, now that he was so near; and very evidently,

though more fearfully, trying to induce his wife to go too.

But this was one of the points on which the lady shewed her strength;

and when he recommended the advantage of resting herself a quarter

of an hour at Winthrop, as she felt so tired, she resolutely answered,

"Oh! no, indeed! walking up that hill again would do her more harm

than any sitting down could do her good;" and, in short,

her look and manner declared, that go she would not.
  
  

After a little succession of these sort of debates and consultations,

it was settled between Charles and his two sisters, that he

and Henrietta should just run down for a few minutes, to see their aunt

and cousins, while the rest of the party waited for them at the top

of the hill.  Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan;

and, as she went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking

to Henrietta, Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her,

and saying to Captain Wentworth--
  
  

"It is very unpleasant, having such connexions!  But, I assure you,

I have never been in the house above twice in my life."
  
  

She received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile,

followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne

perfectly knew the meaning of.
  
  

The brow of the hill, where they remained, was a cheerful spot:

Louisa returned; and Mary, finding a comfortable seat for herself

on the step of a stile, was very well satisfied so long as the others

all stood about her; but when Louisa drew Captain Wentworth away,

to try for a gleaning of nuts in an adjoining hedge-row,

and they were gone by degrees quite out of sight and sound,

Mary was happy no longer; she quarrelled with her own seat,

was sure Louisa had got a much better somewhere, and nothing could

prevent her from going to look for a better also.  She turned through

the same gate, but could not see them.  Anne found a nice seat

for her, on a dry sunny bank, under the hedge-row, in which

she had no doubt of their still being, in some spot or other.

Mary sat down for a moment, but it would not do; she was sure Louisa

had found a better seat somewhere else, and she would go on

till she overtook her.
  
  

Anne, really tired herself, was glad to sit down; and she very soon heard Captain Wentworth and Louisa in the hedge-row, behind her, as if making their way back along the rough, wild sort of channel, down the centre.  They were speaking as they drew near.  Louisa's voice was the first distinguished.  She seemed to be in the middle of some
eager speech.  What Anne first heard was-- "And so, I made her go.  I could not bear that she should be frightened from the visit by such nonsense.  What! would I be turned back from doing a thing that I had determined to do, and that I knew to be right, by the airs and interference of such a person, or of any person I may say?
No, I have no idea of being so easily persuaded.  When I have made up my mind, I have made it; and Henrietta seemed entirely to have made up hers to call at Winthrop to-day; and yet, she was as near giving it up, out of nonsensical complaisance!"
"She would have turned back then, but for you?"
"She would indeed.  I am almost ashamed to say it."
"Happy for her, to have such a mind as yours at hand!  After the hints you gave just now, which did but confirm my own observations,
the last time I was in company with him,  I need not affect to have no comprehension of what is going on.  I see that more than a mere dutiful morning visit to your aunt was in question; and woe betide him, and her too, when it comes to things of consequence, when they are placed in circumstances requiring fortitude and strength of mind, if she have not resolution enough to resist idle interference in such a trifle as this.  Your sister is an amiable creature; but yours is the character of decision and firmness, I see.  If you value her conduct or happiness, infuse as much of your own spirit into her as you can.  But this, no doubt, you have been always doing.  It is the worst evil of too yielding and indecisive a character, that no influence over it can be depended on.
You are never sure of a good impression being durable; everybody may sway it.  Let those who would be happy be firm.  Here is a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough.  "to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn.  Not a puncture, not a weak spot anywhere.  This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of."  Then returning to his former earnest tone--
"My first wish for all whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm.
If Louisa Musgrove would be beautiful and happy in her November of life, she will cherish all her present powers of mind."
He had done, and was unanswered.  It would have surprised Anne if Louisa could have readily answered such a speech:  words of such interest, spoken with such serious warmth!  She could imagine what Louisa was feeling.
For herself, she feared to move, lest she should be seen.
While she remained, a bush of low rambling holly protected her,
and they were moving on.  Before they were beyond her hearing,
however, Louisa spoke again.
"Mary is good-natured enough in many respects," said she; "but she does sometimes provoke me excessively, by her nonsense and pride-- the Elliot pride.  She has a great deal too much of the Elliot pride.  We do so wish that Charles had married Anne instead.
I suppose you know he wanted to marry Anne?"
After a moment's pause, Captain Wentworth said-- "Do you mean that she refused him?"
"Oh! yes; certainly."
"When did that happen?"
"I do not exactly know, for Henrietta and I were at school at the time;

but I believe about a year before he married Mary.  I wish she had

accepted him.  We should all have liked her a great deal better;

and papa and mamma always think it was her great friend

Lady Russell's doing, that she did not.  They think Charles

might not be learned and bookish enough to please Lady Russell,

and that therefore, she persuaded Anne to refuse him."

Chapter 9

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Captain Wentworth was come to Kellynch as to a home, to stay

as long as he liked, being as thoroughly the object of

the Admiral's fraternal kindness as of his wife's.  He had intended,

on first arriving, to proceed very soon into Shropshire,

and visit the brother settled in that country, but the attractions

of Uppercross induced him to put this off.  There was so much

of friendliness, and of flattery, and of everything most bewitching

in his reception there; the old were so hospitable, the young so agreeable,

that he could not but resolve to remain where he was, and take all

the charms and perfections of Edward's wife upon credit a little longer.
  
  

It was soon Uppercross with him almost every day.  The Musgroves

could hardly be more ready to invite than he to come, particularly

in the morning, when he had no companion at home, for the Admiral

and Mrs Croft were generally out of doors together, interesting themselves

in their new possessions, their grass, and their sheep, and dawdling about

in a way not endurable to a third person, or driving out in a gig,

lately added to their establishment.
  
  

Hitherto there had been but one opinion of Captain Wentworth

among the Musgroves and their dependencies.  It was unvarying,

warm admiration everywhere; but this intimate footing was not more

than established, when a certain Charles Hayter returned among them,

to be a good deal disturbed by it, and to think Captain Wentworth

very much in the way.
  
  

Charles Hayter was the eldest of all the cousins, and a very amiable,

pleasing young man, between whom and Henrietta there had been

a considerable appearance of attachment previous to Captain Wentworth's

introduction.  He was in orders; and having a curacy in the neighbourhood,

where residence was not required, lived at his father's house,

only two miles from Uppercross.  A short absence from home

had left his fair one unguarded by his attentions at this critical period,

and when he came back he had the pain of finding very altered manners,

and of seeing Captain Wentworth.
  
  

Mrs Musgrove and Mrs Hayter were sisters.  They had each had money,

but their marriages had made a material difference in

their degree of consequence.  Mr Hayter had some property of his own,

but it was insignificant compared with Mr Musgrove's; and while

the Musgroves were in the first class of society in the country,

the young Hayters would, from their parents' inferior, retired,

and unpolished way of living, and their own defective education,

have been hardly in any class at all, but for their connexion

with Uppercross, this eldest son of course excepted, who had chosen

to be a scholar and a gentleman, and who was very superior

in cultivation and manners to all the rest.
  
  

The two families had always been on excellent terms, there being no pride

on one side, and no envy on the other, and only such a consciousness

of superiority in the Miss Musgroves, as made them pleased

to improve their cousins.  Charles's attentions to Henrietta

had been observed by her father and mother without any disapprobation.

"It would not be a great match for her; but if Henrietta liked him,"--

and Henrietta did seem to like him.
  
  

Henrietta fully thought so herself, before Captain Wentworth came;

but from that time Cousin Charles had been very much forgotten.
  
  

Which of the two sisters was preferred by Captain Wentworth was

as yet quite doubtful, as far as Anne's observation reached.

Henrietta was perhaps the prettiest, Louisa had the higher spirits;

and she knew not now, whether the more gentle or the more lively character

were most likely to attract him.
  
  

Mr and Mrs Musgrove, either from seeing little, or from

an entire confidence in the discretion of both their daughters,

and of all the young men who came near them, seemed to leave everything

to take its chance.  There was not the smallest appearance of solicitude

or remark about them in the Mansion-house; but it was different

at the Cottage:  the young couple there were more disposed

to speculate and wonder; and Captain Wentworth had not been above

four or five times in the Miss Musgroves' company, and Charles Hayter

had but just reappeared, when Anne had to listen to the opinions

of her brother and sister, as to which was the one liked best.

Charles gave it for Louisa, Mary for Henrietta, but quite agreeing

that to have him marry either could be extremely delightful.
  
  

Charles "had never seen a pleasanter man in his life; and from what

he had once heard Captain Wentworth himself say, was very sure that

he had not made less than twenty thousand pounds by the war.

Here was a fortune at once; besides which, there would be the chance

of what might be done in any future war; and he was sure Captain Wentworth

was as likely a man to distinguish himself as any officer in the navy.

Oh! it would be a capital match for either of his sisters."
  
  

"Upon my word it would," replied Mary.  "Dear me!  If he should

rise to any very great honours!  If he should ever be made a baronet!

`Lady Wentworth' sounds very well.  That would be a noble thing,

indeed, for Henrietta!  She would take place of me then, and Henrietta

would not dislike that.  Sir Frederick and Lady Wentworth!

It would be but a new creation, however, and I never think much

of your new creations."
  
  

It suited Mary best to think Henrietta the one preferred

on the very account of Charles Hayter, whose pretensions she wished

to see put an end to.  She looked down very decidedly upon the Hayters,

and thought it would be quite a misfortune to have the existing connection

From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly

in the same circle.  They were soon dining in company together

at Mr Musgrove's, for the little boy's state could no longer

supply his aunt with a pretence for absenting herself; and this was

but the beginning of other dinings and other meetings.
  
  

Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof;

former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each;

they could not but be reverted to; the year of their engagement

could not but be named by him, in the little narratives or descriptions

which conversation called forth.  His profession qualified him,

his disposition lead him, to talk; and "That was in the year six;"

"That happened before I went to sea in the year six," occurred

in the course of the first evening they spent together:

and though his voice did not falter, and though she had no reason

to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke,

Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind,

that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself.

There must be the same immediate association of thought,

though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.
  
  

They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what

the commonest civility required.  Once so much to each other!

Now nothing!  There had been a time, when of all the large party

now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found it

most difficult to cease to speak to one another.  With the exception,

perhaps, of Admiral and Mrs Croft, who seemed particularly attached

and happy, (Anne could allow no other exceptions even among

the married couples), there could have been no two hearts so open,

no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved.

Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could

never become acquainted.  It was a perpetual estrangement.
  
  

When he talked, she heard the same voice, and discerned the same mind.

There was a very general ignorance of all naval matters throughout the party;

and he was very much questioned, and especially by the two Miss Musgroves,

who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him, as to the manner

of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, &c., and their surprise

at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement

which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant ridicule,

which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant,

and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board

without anything to eat, or any cook to dress it if there were,

or any servant to wait, or any knife and fork to use.
  
  

From thus listening and thinking, she was roused by a whisper

of Mrs Musgrove's who, overcome by fond regrets, could not help saying--
  
  

"Ah! Miss Anne, if it had pleased Heaven to spare my poor son,

I dare say he would have been just such another by this time."
  
  

Anne suppressed a smile, and listened kindly, while Mrs Musgrove

relieved her heart a little more; and for a few minutes, therefore,

could not keep pace with the conversation of the others.
  
  

When she could let her attention take its natural course again,

she found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the Navy List

(their own navy list, the first that had ever been at Uppercross),

and sitting down together to pore over it, with the professed view

of finding out the ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded.
  
  

"Your first was the Asp, I remember; we will look for the Asp."
  
  

"You will not find her there.  Quite worn out and broken up.

I was the last man who commanded her.  Hardly fit for service then.

Reported fit for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off

to the West Indies."
  
  

The girls looked all amazement.
  
  

"The Admiralty," he continued, "entertain themselves now and then,

with sending a few hundred men to sea, in a ship not fit to be employed.

But they have a great many to provide for; and among the thousands

that may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible

for them to distinguish the very set who may be least missed."
"hoo! phoo!" cried the Admiral, "what stuff these young fellows talk!

Never was a better sloop than the Asp in her day.  For an old built sloop,

you would not see her equal.  Lucky fellow to get her!  He knows there

must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her

at the same time.  Lucky fellow to get anything so soon,

with no more interest than his."

"I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you;" replied Captain Wentworth,

seriously.  "I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire.

It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea;

a very great object, I wanted to be doing something."
  
  

"To be sure you did.  What should a young fellow like you do ashore

for half a year together?  If a man had not a wife, he soon wants

to be afloat again."
  
  

"But, Captain Wentworth," cried Louisa, "how vexed you must have been

when you came to the Asp, to see what an old thing they had given you."
  
  

"I knew pretty well what she was before that day;" said he, smiling.

"I had no more discoveries to make than you would have as to

the fashion and strength of any old pelisse, which you had seen

lent about among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember,

and which at last, on some very wet day, is lent to yourself.

Ah! she was a dear old Asp to me.  She did all that I wanted.

I knew she would.  I knew that we should either go to the bottom together,

or that she would be the making of me; and I never had two days

of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her; and after

taking privateers enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck

in my passage home the next autumn, to fall in with the very French frigate

I wanted.  I brought her into Plymouth; and here another instance of luck.

We had not been six hours in the Sound, when a gale came on,

which lasted four days and nights, and which would have done for

poor old Asp in half the time; our touch with the Great Nation

not having much improved our condition.  Four-and-twenty hours later,

and I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth,

in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers; and being lost

in only a sloop, nobody would have thought about me." Anne's shudderings

were to herself alone; but the Miss Musgroves could be as open

as they were sincere, in their exclamations of pity and horror.
  
  

"And so then, I suppose," said Mrs Musgrove, in a low voice,

as if thinking aloud, "so then he went away to the Laconia, and there

he met with our poor boy. Charles, my dear," (beckoning him to her),

"do ask Captain Wentworth where it was he first met with your poor brother.

I always forgot."
  
  

"It was at Gibraltar, mother, I know.  Dick had been left ill at Gibraltar,

with a recommendation from his former captain to Captain Wentworth."
  
  

"Oh! but, Charles, tell Captain Wentworth, he need not be  

of mentioning poor Dick before me, for it would be rather a pleasure

to hear him talked of by such a good friend."
  
  

Charles, being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case,

only nodded in reply, and walked away.
  
  

The girls were now hunting for the Laconia; and Captain Wentworth

could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume

into his own hands to save them the trouble, and once more read aloud

the little statement of her name and rate, and present

non-commissioned class, observing over it that she too had been

one of the best friends man ever had.
  
  

"Ah! those were pleasant days when I had the Laconia!  How fast I

made money in her.  A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise

together off the Western Islands.  Poor Harville, sister!

You know how much he wanted money:  worse than myself.  He had a wife.

Excellent fellow.  I shall never forget his happiness.  He felt it all,

so much for her sake.  I wished for him again the next summer,

when I had still the same luck in the Mediterranean."
  
  

"And I am sure, Sir." said Mrs Musgrove, "it was a lucky day for us,

when you were put captain into that ship.  We shall never forget

what you did."
  
  

Her feelings made her speak low; and Captain Wentworth,

hearing only in part, and probably not having Dick Musgrove at all

near his thoughts, looked rather in suspense, and as if waiting for more.
  
  

"My brother," whispered one of the girls; "mamma is thinking

of poor Richard."
  
  

"oor dear fellow!" continued Mrs Musgrove; "he was grown so steady,

and such an excellent correspondent, while he was under your care!

Ah! it would have been a happy thing, if he had never left you.

I assure you, Captain Wentworth, we are very sorry he ever left you."
  
  

There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth's face at this speech,

a certain glance of his bright eye, and curl of his handsome mouth,

which convinced Anne, that instead of sharing in Mrs Musgrove's kind wishes,

as to her son, he had probably been at some pains to get rid of him;

but it was too transient an indulgence of self-amusement to be detected

by any who understood him less than herself; in another moment

he was perfectly collected and serious, and almost instantly afterwards

coming up to the sofa, on which she and Mrs Musgrove were sitting,

took a place by the latter, and entered into conversation with her,

in a low voice, about her son, doing it with so much sympathy

and natural grace, as shewed the kindest consideration for all

that was real and unabsurd in the parent's feelings.
  
  

They were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs Musgrove had

most readily made room for him; they were divided only by Mrs Musgrove.

It was no insignificant barrier, indeed.  Mrs Musgrove was of

a comfortable, substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature

to express good cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment;

and while the agitations of Anne's slender form, and pensive face,

may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth

should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which

he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son,

whom alive nobody had cared for.
  
  

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions.

A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction,

as the most graceful set of limbs in the world.  But, fair or not fair,

there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain--

which taste cannot tolerate--which ridicule will seize.
  
  

The Admiral, after taking two or three refreshing turns about the room

with his hands behind him, being called to order by his wife,

now came up to Captain Wentworth, and without any observation

of what he might be interrupting, thinking only of his own thoughts,

began with--
  
  

"If you had been a week later at Lisbon, last spring, Frederick,

you would have been asked to give a passage to Lady Mary Grierson

and her daughters."
  
  

"Should I?  I am glad I was not a week later then."
  
  

The Admiral abused him for his want of gallantry.  He defended himself;

though professing that he would never willingly admit any ladies

on board a ship of his, excepting for a ball, or a visit,

which a few hours might comprehend.
  
  

"But, if I know myself," said he, "this is from no want of gallantry

towards them.  It is rather from feeling how impossible it is,

with all one's efforts, and all one's sacrifices, to make

the accommodations on board such as women ought to have.

There can be no want of gallantry, Admiral, in rating the claims of women

to every personal comfort high, and this is what I do.  I hate to hear

of women on board, or to see them on board; and no ship under my command

shall ever convey a family of ladies anywhere, if I can help it."
  
  

This brought his sister upon him.
  
  

"Oh! Frederick!  But I cannot believe it of you. --All idle refinement!

--Women may be as comfortable on board, as in the best house in England.

I believe I have lived as much on board as most women, and I know

nothing superior to the accommodations of a man-of-war.  I declare

I have not a comfort or an indulgence about me, even at Kellynch Hall,"

(with a kind bow to Anne), "beyond what I always had in most of

the ships I have lived in; and they have been five altogether."
  
  

"Nothing to the purpose," replied her brother.  "You were living

with your husband, and were the only woman on board."
  
  

"But you, yourself, brought Mrs Harville, her sister, her cousin,

and three children, round from Portsmouth to Plymouth.  Where was this

superfine, extraordinary sort of gallantry of yours then?"
  
  

"All merged in my friendship, Sophia.  I would assist any

brother officer's wife that I could, and I would bring anything

of Harville's from the world's end, if he wanted it.  But do not imagine

that I did not feel it an evil in itself."
  
  

"Depend upon it, they were all perfectly comfortable."
  
  

"I might not like them the better for that perhaps.  Such a number

of women and children have no right to be comfortable on board."
  
  

"My dear Frederick, you are talking quite idly.  Pray, what would

become of us poor sailors' wives, who often want to be conveyed to

one port or another, after our husbands, if everybody had your feelings?"
  
  

"My feelings, you see, did not prevent my taking Mrs Harville

and all her family to Plymouth."
  
  

"But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman,

and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures.

We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days."
  
  

"Ah! my dear," said the Admiral, "when he had got a wife,

he will sing a different tune.  When he is married, if we have

the good luck to live to another war, we shall see him do as you and I,

and a great many others, have done.  We shall have him very thankful

to anybody that will bring him his wife."
  
  

"Ay, that we shall."
  
  

"Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth.  "When once married

people begin to attack me with,--`Oh! you will think very differently,

when you are married.'  I can only say, `No, I shall not;' and then

they say again, `Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it."
  
  

He got up and moved away.
  
  

"What a great traveller you must have been, ma'am!" said Mrs Musgrove

to Mrs Croft.
  
  

"retty well, ma'am in the fifteen years of my marriage;

though many women have done more.  I have crossed the Atlantic

four times, and have been once to the East Indies, and back again,

and only once; besides being in different places about home:

Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar.  But I never went beyond the Streights,

and never was in the West Indies.  We do not call Bermuda or Bahama,

you know, the West Indies."
  
  

Mrs Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent; she could not accuse herself

of having ever called them anything in the whole course of her life.
  
  

"And I do assure you, ma'am," pursued Mrs Croft, "that nothing can exceed

the accommodations of a man-of-war; I speak, you know, of the higher rates.

When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more confined;

though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of them;

and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent

on board a ship.  While we were together, you know, there was nothing

to be feared.  Thank God!  I have always been blessed with

excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me.  A little disordered

always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew

what sickness was afterwards.  The only time I ever really suffered

in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell,

or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal,

when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas.

I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of

imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself,

or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together,

nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience."
  
  

"Aye, to be sure.  Yes, indeed, oh yes!  I am quite of your opinion,

Mrs Croft," was Mrs Musgrove's hearty answer.  "There is nothing so bad

as a separation.  I am quite of your opinion.  I know what it is,

for Mr Musgrove always attends the assizes, and I am so glad when

they are over, and he is safe back again."
  
  

The evening ended with dancing.  On its being proposed,

Anne offered her services, as usual; and though her eyes would sometimes

fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad

to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved.
  
  

It was a merry, joyous party, and no one seemed in higher spirits

than Captain Wentworth.  She felt that he had every thing to elevate

him which general attention and deference, and especially the attention

of all the young women, could do.  The Miss Hayters, the females

of the family of cousins already mentioned, were apparently admitted

to the honour of being in love with him; and as for Henrietta and Louisa,

they both seemed so entirely occupied by him, that nothing but

the continued appearance of the most perfect good-will between themselves

could have made it credible that they were not decided rivals.

If he were a little spoilt by such universal, such eager admiration,

who could wonder?
  
  

These were some of the thoughts which occupied Anne, while her fingers

were mechanically at work, proceeding for half an hour together,

equally without error, and without consciousness.  Once she felt

that he was looking at herself,  observing her altered features,

perhaps, trying to trace in them the ruins of the face which had once

charmed him; and once she knew that he must have spoken of her;

she was hardly aware of it, till she heard the answer; but then she was

sure of his having asked his partner whether Miss Elliot never danced?

The answer was, "Oh, no; never; she has quite given up dancing.

She had rather play.  She is never tired of playing."  Once, too,

he spoke to her.  She had left the instrument on the dancing being over,

and he had sat down to try to make out an air which he wished

to give the Miss Musgroves an idea of.  Unintentionally she returned

to that part of the room; he saw her, and, instantly rising,

said, with studied politeness--
  
  

"I beg your pardon, madam, this is your seat;" and though she immediately

drew back with a decided negative, he was not to be induced

to sit down again.
  
  

Anne did not wish for more of such looks and speeches.

His cold politeness, his ceremonious grace, were worse than anything.

A very few days more, and Captain Wentworth was known to be at Kellynch, and Mr Musgrove had called on him, and come back warm in his praise, and he was engaged with the Crofts to dine at Uppercross,
by the end of another week.  It had been a great disappointment to Mr Musgrove to find that no earlier day could be fixed, so impatient was he to shew his gratitude, by seeing Captain Wentworth under his own roof, and welcoming him to all that was strongest and best in his cellars.  But a week must pass; only a week, in Anne's reckoning, and then, she supposed, they must meet; and soon she began to wish that she could feel secure even for a week.
Captain Wentworth made a very early return to Mr Musgrove's civility,
and she was all but calling there in the same half hour. She and Mary were actually setting forward for the Great House, where, as she afterwards learnt, they must inevitably have found him, when they were stopped by the eldest boy's being at that moment brought home in consequence of a bad fall.  The child's situation put the visit entirely aside; but she could not hear of her escape with difference, even in the midst of the serious anxiety which they afterwards felt on his account.
His collar-bone was found to be dislocated, and such injury received in the back, as roused the most alarming ideas.
It was an afternoon of distress, and Anne had every thing to do at once; the apothecary to send for, the father to have pursued and informed, the mother to support and keep from hysterics, the servants to control, the youngest child to banish, and the poor suffering one to attend and soothe; besides sending, as soon as she recollected it,
proper notice to the other house, which brought her an accession
rather of frightened, enquiring companions, than of very useful assistants.
Her brother's return was the first comfort; he could take best care
of his wife; and the second blessing was the arrival of the apothecary. Till he came and had examined the child, their apprehensions were the worse for being vague; they suspected great injury, but knew not where; but now the collar-bone was soon replaced, and though Mr Robinson
felt and felt, and rubbed, and looked grave, and spoke low words
both to the father and the aunt, still they were all to hope the best, and to be able to part and eat their dinner in tolerable ease of mind; and then it was, just before they parted, that the two young aunts were able so far to digress from their nephew's state, as to give the information of Captain Wentworth's visit; staying five minutes behind their father and mother, to endeavour to express how perfectly delighted they were with him, how much handsomer, how infinitely more agreeable they thought him than any individual among their male acquaintance, who had been at all a favourite before.  How glad they had been to hear papa invite him to stay dinner, how sorry when he said it was quite out of his power, and how glad again when he had promised in reply to papa and mamma's farther pressing invitations to come and dine with them on the morrow--actually on the morrow; and he had promised it in so pleasant a manner, as if he felt
all the motive of their attention just as he ought.  And in short,
he had looked and said everything with such exquisite grace,
that they could assure them all, their heads were both turned by him;
and off they ran, quite as full of glee as of love, and apparently
more full of Captain Wentworth than of little Charles.
The same story and the same raptures were repeated, when the two girls came with their father, through the gloom of the evening, to make enquiries; and Mr Musgrove, no longer under the first uneasiness about his heir, could add his confirmation and praise, and hope there would be now no occasion for putting Captain Wentworth off, and only be sorry to think that the cottage party, probably, would not like to leave the little boy, to give him the meeting.  "Oh no; as to leaving the little boy," both father and mother were in much too strong and recent alarm to bear the thought; and Anne, in the joy of the escape,
could not help adding her warm protestations to theirs.
Charles Musgrove, indeed, afterwards, shewed more of inclination;
"the child was going on so well, and he wished so much to be introduced to Captain Wentworth, that, perhaps, he might join them in the evening; he would not dine from home, but he might walk in for half an hour." But in this he was eagerly opposed by his wife, with "Oh! no, indeed, Charles, I cannot bear to have you go away.  Only think if anything should happen?"
The child had a good night, and was going on well the next day.
It must be a work of time to ascertain that no injury had been

done to the spine; but Mr Robinson found nothing to increase alarm,

and Charles Musgrove began, consequently, to feel no necessity

for longer confinement.  The child was to be kept in bed and amused

as quietly as possible; but what was there for a father to do?
This was quite a female case, and it would be highly absurd in him,
who could be of no use at home, to shut himself up.  His father
very much wished him to meet Captain Wentworth, and there being no sufficient reason against it, he ought to go; and it ended in his
making a bold, public declaration, when he came in from shooting,
of his meaning to dress directly, and dine at the other house.
"Nothing can be going on better than the child," said he;"so I told my father, just now, that I would come, and he thought me quite right.  Your sister being with you, my love, I have no scruple at all.
You would not like to leave him yourself, but you see I can be of no use.

Anne will send for me if anything is the matter."
  
  

Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain.

Mary knew, from Charles's manner of speaking, that he was

quite determined on going, and that it would be of no use to teaze him.

She said nothing, therefore, till he was out of the room,

but as soon as there was only Anne to hear--
  
  

"So you and I are to be left to shift by ourselves, with this

poor sick child; and not a creature coming near us all the evening!

I knew how it would be.  This is always my luck.  If there is

anything disagreeable going on men are always sure to get out of it,

and Charles is as bad as any of them.  Very unfeeling!  I must say

it is very unfeeling of him to be running away from his poor little boy.

Talks of his being going on so well!  How does he know that he is

going on well, or that there may not be a sudden change half an hour hence?

I did not think Charles would have been so unfeeling.  So here he is to

go away and enjoy himself, and because I am the poor mother,

I am not to be allowed to stir; and yet, I am sure, I am more unfit

than anybody else to be about the child.  My being the mother

is the very reason why my feelings should not be tried.  I am not at all

equal to it.  You saw how hysterical I was yesterday."
  
  

"But that was only the effect of the suddenness of your alarm--

of the shock.  You will not be hysterical again.  I dare say we shall have

nothing to distress us.  I perfectly understand Mr Robinson's directions,

and have no fears; and indeed, Mary, I cannot wonder at your husband.

Nursing does not belong to a man; it is not his province.

A sick child is always the mother's property:  her own feelings

generally make it so."
  
  

"I hope I am as fond of my child as any mother, but I do not know

that I am of any more use in the sick-room than Charles,

for I cannot be always scolding and teazing the poor child when it is ill;

and you saw, this morning, that if I told him to keep quiet,

he was sure to begin kicking about.  I have not nerves

for the sort of thing."
  
  

"But, could you be comfortable yourself, to be spending

the whole evening away from the poor boy?"
  
  

"Yes; you see his papa can, and why should not I?  Jemima is so careful;

and she could send us word every hour how he was.  I really think

Charles might as well have told his father we would all come.

I am not more alarmed about little Charles now than he is.

I was dreadfully alarmed yesterday, but the case is very different to-day."
  
  

"Well, if you do not think it too late to give notice for yourself,

suppose you were to go, as well as your husband.  Leave little Charles

to my care.  Mr and Mrs Musgrove cannot think it wrong while I remain

with him."
  
  

"Are you serious?" cried Mary, her eyes brightening.  "Dear me!

that's a very good thought, very good, indeed.  To be sure,

I may just as well go as not, for I am of no use at home--am I?

and it only harasses me.  You, who have not a mother's feelings,

are a great deal the properest person.  You can make little Charles

do anything; he always minds you at a word.  It will be a great deal better

than leaving him only with Jemima.  Oh! I shall certainly go;

I am sure I ought if I can, quite as much as Charles, for they want me

excessively to be acquainted with Captain Wentworth, and I know

you do not mind being left alone.  An excellent thought of yours,

indeed, Anne.  I will go and tell Charles, and get ready directly.

You can send for us, you know, at a moment's notice, if anything

is the matter; but I dare say there will be nothing to alarm you.

I should not go, you may be sure, if I did not feel quite at ease

about my dear child."
  
  

The next moment she was tapping at her husband's dressing-room door,

and as Anne followed her up stairs, she was in time for

the whole conversation, which began with Mary's saying,

in a tone of great exultation--
  
  

"I mean to go with you, Charles, for I am of no more use at home

than you are.  If I were to shut myself up for ever with the child,

I should not be able to persuade him to do anything he did not like.

Anne will stay; Anne undertakes to stay at home and take care of him.

It is Anne's own proposal, and so I shall go with you, which will be

a great deal better, for I have not dined at the other house since Tuesday."
  
  

"This is very kind of Anne," was her husband's answer, "and I should be

very glad to have you go; but it seems rather hard that she should be

left at home by herself, to nurse our sick child."
  
  

Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity

of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction

was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being

left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening,

when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her

to let him come and fetch her, but she was quite unpersuadable;

and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them

set off together in high spirits.  They were gone, she hoped,

to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem;

as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort,

as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers.  She knew herself to be

of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her

if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself

agreeable to others?
  
  

She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting.

Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances.

He must be either indifferent or unwilling.  Had he wished

ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time;

he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place

she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him

the independence which alone had been wanting.
  
  

Her brother and sister came back delighted with their new acquaintance,

and their visit in general.  There had been music, singing,

talking, laughing, all that was most agreeable; charming manners

in Captain Wentworth, no shyness or reserve; they seemed all

to know each other perfectly, and he was coming the very next morning

to shoot with Charles.  He was to come to breakfast, but not at the Cottage,

though that had been proposed at first; but then he had been pressed

to come to the Great House instead, and he seemed  of being

in Mrs Charles Musgrove's way, on account of the child, and therefore,

somehow, they hardly knew how, it ended in Charles's being to meet him

to breakfast at his father's.
  
  

Anne understood it.  He wished to avoid seeing her.  He had inquired

after her, she found, slightly, as might suit a former slight acquaintance,

seeming to acknowledge such as she had acknowledged, actuated, perhaps,

by the same view of escaping introduction when they were to meet.
  
  

The morning hours of the Cottage were always later than those

of the other house, and on the morrow the difference was so great

that Mary and Anne were not more than beginning breakfast when

Charles came in to say that they were just setting off, that he was

come for his dogs, that his sisters were following with Captain Wentworth;

his sisters meaning to visit Mary and the child, and Captain Wentworth

proposing also to wait on her for a few minutes if not inconvenient;

and though Charles had answered for the child's being in no such state

as could make it inconvenient, Captain Wentworth would not be satisfied

without his running on to give notice.
  
  

Mary, very much gratified by this attention, was delighted to receive him,

while a thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was

the most consoling, that it would soon be over.  And it was soon over.

In two minutes after Charles's preparation, the others appeared;

they were in the drawing-room.  Her eye half met Captain Wentworth's,

a bow, a curtsey passed; she heard his voice; he talked to Mary,

said all that was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves,

enough to mark an easy footing; the room seemed full, full of persons

and voices, but a few minutes ended it.  Charles shewed himself

at the window, all was ready, their visitor had bowed and was gone,

the Miss Musgroves were gone too, suddenly resolving to walk

to the end of the village with the sportsmen:  the room was cleared,

and Anne might finish her breakfast as she could.
  
  

"It is over! it is over!" she repeated to herself again and again,

in nervous gratitude.  "The worst is over!"
  
  

Mary talked, but she could not attend.  She had seen him.

They had met.  They had been once more in the same room.
  
  

Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling less.

Eight years, almost eight years had passed, since all had been given up.

How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an interval

had banished into distance and indistinctness!  What might not

eight years do?  Events of every description, changes, alienations,

removals--all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past--

how natural, how certain too!  It included nearly a third part

of her own life.
  
  

Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings

eight years may be little more than nothing.
  
  

Now, how were his sentiments to be read?  Was this like

wishing to avoid her?  And the next moment she was hating herself

for the folly which asked the question.
  
  

On one other question which perhaps her utmost wisdom

might not have prevented, she was soon spared all suspense;

for, after the Miss Musgroves had returned and finished their visit

at the Cottage she had this spontaneous information from Mary: --
  
  

"Captain Wentworth is not very gallant by you, Anne, though he was

so attentive to me.  Henrietta asked him what he thought of you,

when they went away, and he said, `You were so altered he should not

have known you again.'"
  
  

Mary had no feelings to make her respect her sister's in a common way,

but she was perfectly unsuspicious of being inflicting any peculiar wound.
  
  

"Altered beyond his knowledge."  Anne fully submitted, in silent,

deep mortification.  Doubtless it was so, and she could take no revenge,

for he was not altered, or not for the worse.  She had already

acknowledged it to herself, and she could not think differently,

let him think of her as he would.  No:  the years which had destroyed

her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly,

open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages.

She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.
  
  

"So altered that he should not have known her again!"  These were words

which could not but dwell with her.  Yet she soon began to rejoice

that she had heard them.  They were of sobering tendency;

they allayed agitation; they composed, and consequently must

make her happier.
  
  

Frederick Wentworth had used such words, or something like them,

but without an idea that they would be carried round to her.

He had thought her wretchedly altered, and in the first moment of appeal,

had spoken as he felt.  He had not forgiven Anne Elliot.

She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse,

she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided,

confident temper could not endure.  She had given him up to oblige others.

It had been the effect of over-persuasion.  It had been

weakness and timidity.
  
  

He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman since

whom he thought her equal; but, except from some natural sensation

of curiosity, he had no desire of meeting her again.  Her power with him

was gone for ever.
  
  

It was now his object to marry.  He was rich, and being turned on shore, fully intended to settle as soon as he could be properly tempted; actually looking round, ready to fall in love with all the speed which a clear head and a quick taste could allow.  He had a heart for either of the Miss Musgroves, if they could catch it; a heart, in short, for any pleasing young woman who came in his way,
excepting Anne Elliot.  This was his only secret exception, when he said to his sister, in answer to her suppositions:--
"Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match.
Anybody between fifteen and thirty may have me for asking.
A little beauty, and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy,
and I am a lost man.  Should not this be enough for a sailor,
who has had no society among women to make him nice?"
He said it, she knew, to be contradicted.  His bright proud eye
spoke the conviction that he was nice; and Anne Elliot was
not out of his thoughts, when he more seriously described
the woman he should wish to meet with.  "A strong mind,
with sweetness of manner," made the first and the last of the description.
"That is the woman I want," said he.  "Something a little inferior
I shall of course put up with, but it must not be much.  If I am a fool,I shall be a fool indeed, for I have thought on the subject
more than most men."

I am come on to give you notice, that papa and mamma are

out of spirits this evening, especially mamma; she is thinking so much

of poor Richard!  And we agreed it would be best to have the harp,

for it seems to amuse her more than the piano-forte.  I will tell you

why she is out of spirits.  When the Crofts called this morning,

(they called here afterwards, did not they?), they happened to say,

that her brother, Captain Wentworth, is just returned to England,

or paid off, or something, and is coming to see them almost directly;

and most unluckily it came into mamma's head, when they were gone,

that Wentworth, or something very like it, was the name of

poor Richard's captain at one time; I do not know when or where,

but a great while before he died, poor fellow!  And upon looking over

his letters and things, she found it was so, and is perfectly sure

that this must be the very man, and her head is quite full of it,

and of poor Richard!  So we must be as merry as we can, that she may not

be dwelling upon such gloomy things."
  
  

The real circumstances of this pathetic piece of family history were,

that the Musgroves had had the ill fortune of a very troublesome,

hopeless son; and the good fortune to lose him before he reached

his twentieth year; that he had been sent to sea because he was stupid

and unmanageable on shore; that he had been very little cared for

at any time by his family, though quite as much as he deserved;

seldom heard of, and scarcely at all regretted, when the intelligence

of his death abroad had worked its way to Uppercross, two years before.
  
  

He had, in fact, though his sisters were now doing all they could for him,

by calling him "poor Richard," been nothing better than a thick-headed,

unfeeling, unprofitable Dick Musgrove, who had never done anything

to entitle himself to more than the abbreviation of his name,

living or dead.
  
  

He had been several years at sea, and had, in the course of those removals

to which all midshipmen are liable, and especially such midshipmen

as every captain wishes to get rid of, been six months on board

Captain Frederick Wentworth's frigate, the Laconia; and from the Laconia

he had, under the influence of his captain, written the only two letters

which his father and mother had ever received from him during the whole

of his absence; that is to say, the only two disinterested letters;

all the rest had been mere applications for money.
  
  

In each letter he had spoken well of his captain; but yet,

so little were they in the habit of attending to such matters,

so unobservant and incurious were they as to the names of men or ships,

that it had made scarcely any impression at the time; and that Mrs Musgrove

should have been suddenly struck, this very day, with a recollection

of the name of Wentworth, as connected with her son, seemed one of those

extraordinary bursts of mind which do sometimes occur.
  
  

She had gone to her letters, and found it all as she supposed;

and the re-perusal of these letters, after so long an interval,

her poor son gone for ever, and all the strength of his faults forgotten,

had affected her spirits exceedingly, and thrown her into

greater grief for him than she had know on first hearing of his death.

Mr Musgrove was, in a lesser degree, affected likewise; and when

they reached the cottage, they were evidently in want, first,

of being listened to anew on this subject, and afterwards,

of all the relief which cheerful companions could give them.
  
  

To hear them talking so much of Captain Wentworth, repeating his name

so often, puzzling over past years, and at last ascertaining that it might,

that it probably would, turn out to be the very same Captain Wentworth

whom they recollected meeting, once or twice, after their coming back

from Clifton--a very fine young man--but they could not say whether

it was seven or eight years ago, was a new sort of trial to Anne's nerves.

She found, however, that it was one to which she must inure herself.

Since he actually was expected in the country, she must teach herself

to be insensible on such points.  And not only did it appear that

he was expected, and speedily, but the Musgroves, in their warm gratitude

for the kindness he had shewn poor Dick, and very high respect

for his character, stamped as it was by poor Dick's having been

six months under his care, and mentioning him in strong,

though not perfectly well-spelt praise, as "a fine dashing felow,

only two perticular about the schoolmaster," were bent on

introducing themselves, and seeking his acquaintance, as soon as
they could hear of his arrival.
The resolution of doing so helped to form the comfort of their evening.

Anne had not wanted this visit to Uppercross, to learn that a removal
from one set of people to another, though at a distance of only three miles,
will often include a total change of conversation, opinion, and idea.
She had never been staying there before, without being struck by it,
or without wishing that other Elliots could have her advantage
in seeing how unknown, or unconsidered there, were the affairs
which at Kellynch Hall were treated as of such general publicity
and pervading interest; yet, with all this experience, she believed
she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing or own nothingness beyond our own circle, was become necessary for her; for certainly, coming as she did, with a heart full of the subject which had been completely occupying both houses in Kellynch for many weeks,she had expected rather more curiosity and sympathy than she found in the separate but very similar remark of Mr and Mrs Musgrove: "So, Miss Anne, Sir Walter and your sister are gone; and what part of Bath
"do you think they will settle in?" and this, without much waiting for an answer; or in the young ladies' addition of, "I hope we shall be in Bath in the winter; but remember, papa,
if we do go, we must be in a good situation:  none of your
Queen Squares for us!" or in the anxious supplement from Mary, of--
"Upon my word, I shall be pretty well off, when you are all gone away
to be happy at Bath!"
She could only resolve to avoid such self-delusion in future,
and think with heightened gratitude of the extraordinary blessing
of having one such truly sympathising friend as Lady Russell.
The Mr Musgroves had their own game to guard, and to destroy,
their own horses, dogs, and newspapers to engage them, and the females were fully occupied in all the other common subjects of housekeeping,neighbours, dress, dancing, and music.  She acknowledged it to be very fitting, that every little social commonwealth should dictate its own matters of discourse; and hoped, ere long, to become
a not unworthy member of the one she was now transplanted into.
With the prospect of spending at least two months at Uppercross,
it was highly incumbent on her to clothe her imagination, her memory,
and all her ideas in as much of Uppercross as possible.
She had no dread of these two months.  Mary was not so repulsive
and unsisterly as Elizabeth, nor so inaccessible to all influence of hers; neither was there anything among the other component parts
of the cottage inimical to comfort.  She was always on friendly terms
with her brother-in-law; and in the children, who loved her nearly as well, and respected her a great deal more than their mother, she had
an object of interest, amusement, and wholesome exertion.
Charles Musgrove was civil and agreeable; in sense and temper he was
undoubtedly superior to his wife, but not of powers, or conversation,
or grace, to make the past, as they were connected together,
at all a dangerous contemplation; though, at the same time,
Anne could believe, with Lady Russell, that a more equal match
might have greatly improved him; and that a woman of real understanding
might have given more consequence to his character, and more usefulness,
rationality, and elegance to his habits and pursuits.  As it was,
he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise
trifled away, without benefit from books or anything else.
He had very good spirits, which never seemed much affected by
his wife's occasional lowness, bore with her unreasonableness
sometimes to Anne's admiration, and upon the whole, though there was
very often a little